THE 


GOLDEN     AGE 


OP 


AMERICAN    ORATORY. 


EDWARD     G.    PARKER. 


BOSTON: 

WHITTEMORE,   NILES,    AND    HALL. 
1857. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1857,  by 

EDWAKD  G.  PAEKEK, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF  AND  COMPANY,  PEINTEES  TO  THE  DNIVERSITT. 


P3 


TO 
MY   ALMA   MATER,    "YALE," 

WHOSE  GREAT  SOCIETIES 

"THE    BROTHEKS    IN    UNITY"    AND    "LINONIA" 

ARE  NURSERIES  OF  MANLY  DEBATE, 

I  INSCRIBE  THIS  VOLUME, 
AS  A   FILIAL  THOUGH  HUMBLE  OFFERING. 


PREFACE. 


THE  descriptions  of  Henry  Clay  and  of  Rufus 
Choate  in  this  volume  appeared  originally  in  "  Put- 
nam's Magazine."  The  favorable  opinion  then 
expressed  of  them  by  persons  of  knowledge  and 
judgment  encouraged  the  author  to  attempt  the 
description  of  a  circle  of  their  contemporary  orators. 
The  view  of  Fisher  Ames  here  given  was  origi- 
nally presented  in  the  form  of  a  Lecture  before  the 
"  Mercantile  Library  Association  "  of  Boston ;  and 
a  portion  of  the  description  of  Edward  Everett's 
oratory  was  pronounced  as  an  Oration  on  the  Fourth 
of  July,  before  the  City  Authorities  of  Boston.  With 
these  exceptions,  the  matter  of  the  book  is  now  first 
published. 

In  illustrating  the  great  age  of  American  Elo- 
quence, the  author  has  relied  almost  exclusively  up- 
on the  examples  of  orators  to  whom  he  had  himself 
frequently  listened.  To  this  plan,  Ames  and  Pink- 
ney  are  the  only  exceptions.  Pinkney  is  treated  of, 
because  he  divides  with  Rufus  Choate  the  oratorio 
leadership  of  the  American  bar.  Some  years  ago 
the  author's  attention  was  forcibly  attracted  to  him, 
by  the  circumstance  of  hearing  Mr.  Webster,  Mr. 
* 


VI  PREFACE. 

Clay,  and  Mr.  Choate,  all,  at  different  times  and 
without  concert  with  each  other,  declare  that  our 
Bar  was  indebted  to  Mr.  Pinkney  for  the  most  gor- 
geous display  of  oratory  it  had  ever  heard.  For 
some  time  after  hearing  this  opinion,  the  author  had 
opportunities  of  conversation  with  many  gentle- 
men who  had  heard  Pinkney ;  and  from  these  origi- 
nal sources,  and  the  published  reminiscences  of  him, 
he  has  attempted  to  draw  this  miniature  history  of 
his  oratory. 

Although  the  Revolutionary  orators  ushered  in 
this  Golden  Age  of  our  Eloquence,  no  attempt  has 
been  made  to  describe  them ;  because  such  a  de- 
scription now  must  be,  at  best,  only  a  second-hand 
copy  of  their  traditionary  lineaments. 

Many  of  the  illustrative  remarks  and  conversa- 
tions alluded  to  in  this  volume,  especially  of  Mr. 
Clay,  Mr.  Webster,  and  Mr.  Choate,  were  expressed 
directly  to  the  author,  or  in  his  presence,  by  these 
gentlemen.  He  has  not,  however,  thought  it  worth 
while  to  particularize  these  instances  in  the  text; 
except  where  an  important  principle  is  asserted  by 
such  eminent  authorities,  or  an  important  historical 
fact  is  narrated. 

Clay,  Webster,  and  Ames  illustrate  our  Congres- 
sional ivatory  ;  Pinkney  and  Choate,  our  forensic 
adv.  /;  Everett,  Chapin,  Ueecher,  and  .Phillips, 
our  Platform  speaking.  Great  names  in  our  oratory 
there  are  also  behind  these,  —  but  none  greater. 

BOSTON,  September,  1857. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

PAGE 
THE   GOLDEN   AGE   OP  AMERICAN   ORATORY  i 

CHAPTER    II. 

THE   ORATORY  OP   CONGRESS. 
CONGRESS        u 

HENRY  CLAY 15 

DANIEL  WEBSTER AQ 

FISHER  AMES ,01 

CHAPTER    III. 

THE   ORATORY   OF  THE  BAR. 

THE   BAR 

•         .         .         154 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY 
RUFUS   CHOATE 


217 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE   ORATORY   OP  THE  PLATFORM. 

THE   PLATFORM 257 

EDWARD   EVERETT 050 

EDWIN  H.  CHAPIN  ") 

HENRY   WARD   BEECHER  |  326 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS 


EKKATUM. 


Page  95,  line  1,  for  TO  dftvorrjs,  read  TO 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE    GOLDEN    AGE. 

THE  twenty  years  of  discussion  which  opened 
the  way  to  our  American  Revolution,  inaugurated 
American  Eloquence.  From  that  time  till  now,  is 
one  century.  This  century  may  be  called,  with 
strict  propriety,  the  Golden  Age  of  American  Ora- 
tory. It  is  marked  by  broad,  distinctive  lines  of 
character,  which  give  it,  in  a  large  view,  a  remark- 
able singleness  and  unity.  It  embraces  the  bud- 
ding and  the  blooming  of  American  nationality. 
The  Revolution,  with  its  virtuous  and  heroic  tone 
of  thought,  and  "the  second  Revolution,"  in  1812, 
as  Henry  Clay  called  that  war,  are  both  embraced 
in  it.  The  first  was  the  old  men's  Declaration  of 
Independence  on  the  land ;  the  second  was  the 
young  men's  "Declaration  of  Independence"  on 
the  seas.  In  this  century  period,  also,  is  compre- 
hended the  first  exhibition  of  our  Anglo-Saxon 
longing  for  new  lands,  with  all  the  lively  passions 
attending  its  development;  the  first  billowy  swell- 
1 


2  GOLDEN  AGE   OF 

ings  of  the  national  heart,  in  the  magnificent 
dream  of  empire,  which  the  doctrine  of  our  terri- 
torial "  Manifest  Destiny"  opened  to  view.  In  this 
century,  moreover,  the  foundations  of  the  national 
Constitution  have  been  probed  and  made  fast. 
The  principles  of  the  government  which  Hamil- 
ton and  Jefferson  built,  have  been  discussed ;  and 
the  discussion  has  resulted  in  familiarizing  the 
minds  of  the  people  with  the  great  thoughts,  and 
the  noble  enthusiasm,  of  the  architects  and  builders. 
While,  lastly,  in  this  lustral  age,  practical  Philan- 
thropy, with  all  its  diverse  sources  of  glowing  in- 
spiration, has  burst  upon  men's  minds.  This,  then, 
is  the  age  of  the  youth,  the  virtue,  and  the  passion 
of  the  Republic,  —  the  childhood  of  its  heart,  — 
and  from  these  sources  the  urns  of  Eloquence  are 

fed. 

$- 

By  a  rare  felicity,  the  youthful  prime  of  the  na- 
tion, and  the  splendor  of  an  unrivalled  martial 
and  civic  glory,  coincide  in  one  period ;  and  thus, 
all  the  national  fountains,  which  in  history  have 
been  observed  to  supply  the  deep  cisterns  of  men's 
emotions,  have  poured  with  prodigal  abundance 
into  the  American  soul.  In  the  enthusiastic  spring- 
time of  a  nation's  kindling  youth,  and  the  conscious 
pride  of  such  a  new-born  majesty,  full-armed  with 
victory  from  its  very  birth,  the  orators  of  the  Re- 
public have  trembled  with  Pythic  frenzy  under  a 
thousand  inspirations. 

When  with  that  sweet  voice,  which  has  become 


AMERICAN   ORATORY.  3 

historic,  and  with  a  taunting  rapture,  young  Henry 
Clay  thundered  out  the  query,  "  What  have  we 
gained  by  the  war?"  both  the  political  parties 
rested  on  their  arms,  to  hear  the  answer  of  the 
young  man  eloquent.  Then  did  he  burst  into  that 
proudly  vehement  enumeration  of  resulting  moral 
glories,  which  stands  one  of  the  most  command- 
ing speeches  of  his  life,  one  to  which  America 
listened,  till  she  learned  it  by  heart;  and  fore- 
most in  the  catalogue  which  he  then  presented  to 
her,  was  the  imperial  consciousness,  developed  in 
the  masses  by  the  second  war,  that  not  only  the 
nationality,  but  the  majesty  of  the  Republic,  stood 
vindicated  by  it  to  the  world  ;  that,  henceforth,  she 
was  not  only  an  existence,  but  a  first-class  power ; 
that  no  one  should  ever  again  need  to  ask,  Who 
reads  an  American  book?  or,  Who  sails  an  American 
ship  ?  but  that  everywhere,  in  broad-armed  ports  or 
on  the  loneliest  sea,  the  starred  bunting  of  the  new 
nation  should  flout  the  air  unchallenged;  and  the 
old  gonfalons  which  had  fluttered  in  the  van  of 
conquering  admirals,  before  that  bunting  was  sewed 
together,  should  for  ever  after  stoop  in  stately  rec- 
ognition of  its  full  companionship.  When  these 
thoughts  flashed  in  young  Harry  Clay's  bright  eyes, 
and  rang  out  in  his  invincible  tones,  he  was  sweep- 
ing the  key-notes  of  American  eloquence,  youth, 
virtue,  victory,  and  the  majesty  of  a  nation  embody- 
ing them  all. 

The  golden  age  of  Roman  oratory  was  the  last-, 


4  GOLDEN   AGE   OF 

instead  of  the  first,  century  of  the  Republican  city. 
It  was  when  her  haughty  tribes  had  already  ex- 
perienced the  kindling  glow  of  imperial  concep- 
tions ;  when  the  consuls  were  coming  into  the 
forum  daily,  with  new  symbols  of  the  national 
advance  to  dominion,  and  encompassed  with  new 
deputations  of  vassal  states  ;  the  days  when  the 
empire  of  the  world  struggled  in  the  thoughts  of 
her  great  men,  and  ideas  floated  about  her  Capitol 
which  inspired  the  humblest  of  her  citizens  with  a 
half-conscious  majesty.  If  at  that  period,  the  spent 
youth  of  the  Roman  tribes  could  have  been  re- 
newed ;  if  the  great  Republic  could  have  throbbed 
once  more,  with  its  first  emotibns  of  new  existence, 
and  an  incorrupt  civil  virtue,  — then  her  golden  period 
of  eloquence  would  have  coincided  with  ours.  What 
the  consuls  and  the  tribunes  were  to  the  Roman 
Republic,  Clay  and  his  compeers  have  been  to  us. 
The  oratory  of  Rome  is  a  grand  epitaph  on  the 
tomb  of  a  mighty  Past ;  the  oratory  of  America 
is  the  song  of  triumph,  bursting  from  the  lips  of 
Prophets  whose  feet  are  resting  on  the  beautiful 
mountains  of  a  promised  land. 

But  the  spirit  of  the  times  is  changing ;  the  jubi- 
lant age  of  the  Republic  is  drawing  to  a  close.  The 
age  of  the  heroes  is  over,  and  the  age  for  their 
statues  is  come.  A  brazen  age,  anti-sentimental, 
succeeds;  an 'age,  when  sordid,  calculating  interest 
rather  than  conscious  merit  dares  to  run  after  re- 
nown. Great  sentiments  and  haughty  enthusiasms 


AMEKICAN   ORATORY.  O 

still  lurk  in  the  bosom  of  many,  but  they  are  not  so 
ingrained  as  they  have  been,  in  the  very  bone  and 
marrow  of  the  people.  Too  often,  the  large  ideas 
in  politics  and  morals,  which  still  underlie  the  ma- 
terial ideal  in  the  national  heart  —  the  great  phil- 
anthropies of  the  day  —  are  got  up  for  effect  and 
prostituted  fof  personal  interests.  Not  men  of 
principle,  but  men  whose  trade  is  principles,  too 
often  rise  and  rule.  Nobody  will  say  that  our  rulers 
of  to-day  compare  with  the  rulers  of  the  elder  day. 
But,  a  great  age  lifts  its  great  men  upon  its  emi- 
nences, and  their  influence  is  reciprocal ;  —  great  men 
in  high  places  draw  up  all  men  after  them,  —  the 
age  elevates  them,  and  they  elevate  the  age  ;  but 
little  men  and  little  thoughts,  embodied  and  victori- 
ous, dwarf  and  vulgarize  still  further,  the  people  who 
set  them  up. 

The  capital  of  the  orator  is  in  the  bank  of  the 
highest  sentimentalities  and  the  purest  enthusiasms. 
If  these  are  not  stored  away  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people,  so  that  whenever  he  speaks  he  can  draw  on 
them,  his  drafts  will  be  dishonored,  and  his  speech 
will  not  rise  above  a  shopkeeper's  oratory.  We  do 
not  mean  that  mere  gossamer  sentiments  should  be 
the  orator's  whole  stock  in  trade ;  he  should  un- 
doubtedly grasp  all  the  coarse,  necessary  business 
themes  of  the  day ;  but  he  should  then  organize  them 
with  ideal  beauty  and  inspire  them ''with  glowing 
enthusiasm ;  over  the  driest  and  hardest  business 
details,  he  should  keep  the  star-spangled  flag  of  sen- 


6  GOLDEN   AGE   OF 

timent  ever  flying.  To  do  this  requires  a  regal  en- 
dowment of  natural  gifts  ;  the  gift  of  rough  business 
capacity,  the  mental  attitude  of  command,  and  the 
exquisite  delicacy  of  the  susceptible  natures.  There- 
fore orators  have  been  not  unaptly  called,  the  "  tip- 
top men  "  of  the  earth.  But  just  as  the  age  ceases 
to  kindle  with  the  best  enthusiasms  and  with  noble 
thoughts,  the  orators  will  cease  to  kindle  with  the 
genuine  rhapsodies  of  passion.  If  the  fire  on  the 
national  hearth-stone  goes  out,  the  orators  cannot 
light  their  torches. 

It  is  true  that  the  Grecian  eloquence  flourished 
brightest  as  Athens  declined.  The  age  of  Demos- 
thenes was  the  age  of  "  the  dishonest  victory  of 
Chaeronea,"  and  the  time  of  the  complete  demoral- 
ization of  the  Athenian  Republic.  But  with  almost 
the  single  exception  of  Demosthenes,  the  eloquence 
of  that  period  appears  to  have  been  all,  more  or  less, 
venal  and  sophistical.  It  was  not  so  much  eloquence 
as  it  was  rhetoric.  It  was  the  eloquence  of  schools, 
—  the  school  of  Lysias,  the  school  of  Isocrates.  It 
was  rhetoric  made  to  order.  But  it  was  not  the 
flashing  fulmination  of  an  eloquence  echoing  from 
great  souls,  greatly  perturbed  and  shaken.  The 
august  Pericles,  though  not  so  fine  a  rhetorician, 
was  an  orator  of  a  higher  stamp  than  ^Eschines; 
and  he  was  doubtless  a  man  of  as  much  native 
power,  though  of  not  so  much  rhetorical  culture 
as  Demosthenes.  Themistocles,  too,  in  the  Mara- 
thon-day, spoke  as  if  the  spirit  of  Salamis  was 


AMERICAN   ORATORY.  7 

pealing  through  his  periods.  He  was  the  Patrick 
Henry  of  Athenian  independence.  In  all  the  true 
essentials  of  conquering  speech,  he  must  have  been 
far  before  those  masters  of  the  trick  of  words,  whom 
the  later  and  more  vulgar  age  offered  to  history. 

Mere  rhetoric  indeed  may  be  produced  at  any 
stage  of  enthusiasm,  or  in  any  condition  of  govern- 
ment. The  world  is  always  pleased  to  be  tickled, 
and  to  be  agreeably  amused.  The  rhetoric  of  the 
Athenian  schools  was  as  prompt  and  brilliant  in 
celebrating  the  triumphs  of  the  Olympian  Alex- 
ander over  their  liberty,  as  it  was  in  celebrating 
their  own  triumphs  over  vassal  states.  The  rhetoric 
of  an  empire  is  brighter  and  more  brassy  than  the 
pure  gold  of  the  earnest  eloquence  of  new-born  re- 
publicanism. 

Demosthenes  did  not  really  belong  to  his  own  age. 
He  was  a  lonely  man  among  the  rhetoricians  and 
sycophants  about  him.  His  soul  was  contemporary 
with  the  better  age  of  the  Greek  democracies, 
though  his  tongue  spoke  his  thoughts  to  a  suc- 
ceeding and  servile  generation.  In  the  speech 
which  the  world  keeps  as  the  greatest  it  has  ever 
heard,  he  swore  "  by  those  who  fell  at  Marathon," 
and  in  his  thoughts  and  in  his  dreams,  he  lived  with 
"  those  who  fell  at  Marathon." 

With  the  sunset  of  our  age  of  chivalry,  therefore, 
we  may  apprehend  a  decline  of  the  best  eloquence. 
But  in  addition  to  this,  there  is  another  cause  point- 
ing steadily  to  the  same  result.  That  cause  is,  the 


8  GOLDEN  AGE   OP 

growing  taste  of  our  people  for  reading,  and  their 
prodigious  facilities  for  its  gratification.  The  eyes 
in  a  measure  supersede  the  ears.  The  press  carries 
the  day  against  forum,  tribune,  and  government. 
No  man  of  any  lustre  of  repute,  makes  a  speech  that 
is  riot  reported  in  full.  The  types  throb  in  unison 
with  his  tongue.  A  thousand  people  hear  him,  but 
tens  of  thousands  read  him.  If  the  speech  reads 
well,  the  verdict  of  the  readers  altogether  outvotes 
that  of  the  hearers.  Whether  therefore  the  orator 
desires  to  gain  the  garland  for  himself,  or  to  gain 
over  an  efficient  public  opinion  for  his  cause,  he 
thinks  of  the  types  more  than  of  the  tones ;  he 
thinks  of  the  next  morning's  newspaper,  and  the 
imposing  volume  of  published  "  Speeches."  He  does 
not  say,  "  Attention,  my  hearers  ! "  but  "  Attention, 
the  universe  "  —  of  readers.  He  does  not  listen  for 
the  hand-clapping  of  an  entranced  audience  before 
him,  but  strains  his  ears  to  catch  the  "  all  hail  here- 
after "  of  the  vaster  audience  of  firesides  and  count- 
ing-rooms. 

The  effect  of  this  shifting  the  real  for  the  ideal 
scenery  around  the  speaker  is  to  produce  accurate 
rhetorical  composition,  rather  than  the  dashing 
vigor  and  vivacious  sparkle  of  spontaneous  oratory. 
We  do  not  think  that  eloquence  will  ever  die  out 
in  America,  but  that  it  will  degenerate  from  its 
first  ardor  and  splendor.  Single  examples  of  il- 
lustrious merit  in  oratory  may  appear  ;  but  it  is 
not  probable  that  the  wide  and  universal  impulses 


AMERICAN   ORATORY.  9 

to  it  will  again  conspire  to  stamp  another  single  age 
with  the  golden  cipher  of  so  many  superiorities. 

We  shall,  of  course,  continue  to  have  parade  elo- 
quence. Our  festal  days  depend  upon  military  and 
oratorical  display  (the  bagpipe  and  the  windpipe) 
for  all  their  bravery,  their  beauty,  and  their  "  fun." 
Pulpit  eloquence  also  will  not  necessarily  suffer  any 
decline  ;  though  ministers  now  often  sermonize  with 
one  eye  on  the  "  printer's  devil."  But  the  sources 
of  genuine  pulpit  inspiration  are  eternal  as  the 
heavens.  The  eloquence  of  the  forum,  the  bar,  will 
hardly  rise  again  to  the  level  it  has  attained.  For, 
in  the  earlier  day,  the  new  views  held  by  our  govern- 
ment, of  men's  "  rights  "  and.  "  wrongs,"  affected  the 
Common  Law ;  both  as  regards  the  rights  of  meum 
and  tuum,  and  the  rights  of  each,  as  between  the 
citizens  and  the  government.  A  vast  field  of  doubt, 
and  therefore  of  eloquent  discussion,  was  thus 
thrown  open  to  the  gentlemen  of  the  green  bag, 
a  wide  sea  of  shadowy  and  uncertain  shores  for  legal 
adventure,  enterprise,  and  discovery.  The  richest 
and  most  illuminated  legal  arguments  ever  made 
on  the  continent,  were  made  by  William  Pinkney 
before  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  forty  years 
ago.  They  discussed  the  new  questions  of  Prize 
Law,  which  arose  from  the  enterprise  of  our  com- 
mercial marine,  —  an  adventurous  enterprise  which 
carried  with  our  new  flag  its  new  principles  upon 
the  high  seas.  The  diction  of  those  arguments  was 
colored  with  an  Oriental  dye,  and  they  were  put  to- 


10  GOLDEN  AGE   OF 

gether  with  an  Anglo-Saxon  compactness  of  thought. 
But  each  year  has  multiplied  judicial  decisions,  and 
settled  open  questions  ;  and,  therefore,  the  scope  for 
judicial  discretion  and  legal  oratory  has  contracted 
accordingly.  We  have  heard  Rufus  Choate  argue 
with  vivacity  and  vehemence,  before  the  full  bench 
of  judges  of  the  Massachusetts  Supreme  Court ;  but 
the  fetters  of  "  the  decisions  "  manacled  his  action, 
and  curbed  in  the  leapings  of  his  intellect.  It  was 
the  blood-horse,  shackled. 

But  of  all  our  theatres  of  eloquence,  none,  we  fear, 
will  more  rapidly  fall  off  from  its  earlier  standards, 
than  Congress.  Parliamentary  discourse  suffers  most 
keenly  and  directly  from  that  decline  in  the  reigning 
sentiments  of  the  day,  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
but  it  also  suffers  indirectly  from  the  prodigious  size 
of  the  country.  These  magnificent  distances  of 
space  produce  a  magnificent  distance  of  feelings 
and  of  interests  between  the  legislators  assembled 
in  Congress.  They  journey  from  different  climates, 
representing  constituencies  which  stand  like  indepen- 
dent kingdoms,  around  the  national  Capitol.  Their 
leading  representatives  display  a  proconsular  inde- 
pendence in  asserting  the  claims,  and  indirectly  dis- 
posing the  patronage  of  their  leagued  constituen- 
cies. By  Presidential  compliance,  they  discuss  meas- 
ures and  apportion  offices  for  the  leading  common- 
wealths of  the  land,  as  if  those  commonwealths 
were  so  many  several  satrapies,  repellent  from  each 
other,  and  only  centralizing  toward  the  Presidential 


AMERICAN   ORATORY.  11 

chair.  If  they  were  all  so  compact  in  size,  as  to  be 
clasped  together  in  such  comparative  unity  of  feel- 
ing, that  the  influences  of  an  eloquent  appeal,  made 
by  the  representative  of  one  of  them,  might  run 
through  the  whole  circle,  the  provocation  to  elo- 
quence would  then  only  grow  more  stimulating 
from  their  number.  But  they  are  so  wide-spread  as 
to  be,  in  general,  incapable  of  any  such  transmitted 
influences  of  sympathetic  oratory.  They  can  only 
be  reached  by  the  printed  speeches.  They  can  only 
be  affected  by  the  less  contagious  influences  of  logic, 
and  figures  and  facts.  What  each  of  the  constit- 
uencies wants,  its  representative  knows.  Nearly  all 
their  votes,  therefore,  are  registered  before  they  leave 
home,  and  they  make  their  speeches,  like  their  votes, 
exclusively  for  the  home-market.  A  Congressman, 
now-a-days,  stands  up  and  reads  off  from  copious 
notes,  to  a  few  inattentive  colleagues,  a  learned  and 
elaborate  composition,  which  he  chooses  to  call  "  a 
speech  " ;  the  energy  he  should  have  thrown  into  its 
delivery,  he  expends  in  attending  to  its  handsome 
publication  ;  and  lo !  his  constituency,  who  have  read 
with  delight  the  speech  to  which  nobody  listened 
with  attention,  receive  him  upon  his  return  with 
trumpets,  and  invite  him  to  a  public  dinner.  The 
effectiveness  of  the  personal  magnetism  of  orators 
in  Congress  is  thus  almost  entirely  barred.  The 
chief  parliamentary  activity  is  in  the  work  of  the 
leaders ;  and  they  exercise  it,  not  in  speaking,  but 
in  campaigning.  They  do  not  oratorize,  they  build 


12  GOLDEN   AGE   OF 

platforms.  They  mould  legislation  with  reference 
to  those  platforms,  and  the  political  campaigns  of 
which  those  platforms  are  the  basis  line  of  opera- 
tions. Never  more  will  any  tribune  of  the  masses 
conquer  the  Senate  and  control  the  House,  with  a 
personal  dominion,  like  Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky. 

Good  speaking,  however,  will  long  be  universal 
with  Americans,  —  great  speaking  is  a  very  different 
thing.  But  there  are  in  our  democracy  so  many 
occasions  for  speaking  of  some  kind,  that  the  supply 
of  speech  of  a  fair  quality,  undoubtedly,  will  always 
equal  the  demand.  Men  congregated  in  an  audi- 
ence are  very  different  from  the  same  men  standing 
apart  as  so  many  individuals.  The  collective  influ- 
ence is  a  peculiar  influence;  a  man  in  a  crowd  is 
conscious  of  different  sympathies  and  another  tone 
of  mind  from  that  which  he  feels  when  alone.  This 
distinctive  influence,  the  specific  influence  of  the 
entire  organism  of  a  crowd,  must  continue  to  be 
frequently  brought  into  play  among  us.  But  as  the 
object  of  our  assemblies  of  people  is  rarely  a  critical 
one,  one  upon  whose  issue  hang  momentous  inter- 
ests, but,  for  the  most  part,  is  merely  to  help  along 
some  excitement  which  is  already  afloat,  the  pre- 
mium for  high  and  noble  oratory  is  small.  Good 
speaking,  although  not  of  the  highest  order,  answers 
every  object  of  the  concourse.  But  great  orators  do 
not  start  up  at  every  public  meeting.  Great  orators 
are  not  made,  they  are  born  ;  and,  though  born  with 
the  germ  of  genius,  they  need  a  felicity  of  situation, 


AMERICAN  ORATORY.  13 

and  the  unfaltering  application  of  a  life  to  accom- 
plish their  development.  Their  bending  brows  may 
be  clothed  by  nature  with  the  awful  thunder;  but 
many  circumstances  must  conspire  to  create  the 
atmosphere,  on  which  alone  it  can  volley  forth. 

To  quicken,  to  educate,  and  to  lead  out  all  such 
genius,  into  the  blaze  of  the  world's  homage,  has 
been  the  signal  glory  of  the  first  century  of  Ameri- 
can life. 


CHAPTER    II. 

CONGEESS. 

THE  oratory  of  Congress,  in  the  earlier  years  of 
the  republic,  truly  represented  the  national  eloquence 
of  thought.  The  earlier  Congresses  were  mirrors  of 
the  national  soul  and  mind.  The  representatives 
were  chosen  by  the  people  for  signal  services,  or 
splendid  talent.  It  had  not  then  been  discovered 
that  small  minds  may  be  elected  into  "  great  men." 
A  great  man  then  must  be  dubbed  "great"  by 
something  else  than  an  accident,  an  election,  or  an 
intrigue.  The  constituency  then  sought  out  the 
representative,  not  the  representative  the  constitu- 
ency. 

There  was  doubtless  much  selfish  chicanery  at 
work  then,  but  the  predominant  tone  of  thought 
and  expression  in  public  men  was  high  and  pure. 
The  country,  not  the  party,  was  the  key-note  of  the 
words,  at  least,  of  the  leaders  in  the  national  Legis- 
lature. Congress  too  was  convincible.  The  mem- 
bers assembled  as  freemen.  They  were  not  man- 
acled in  inflexible  "  instructions,"  like  culprits  in 
irons.  The  people  chose  them,  because  they  were 


HENRY   CLAY.  15 

either  good,  or  wise,  or  great ;  therefore,  when  they 
had  .chosen,  they  trusted  them. 

Taking  everything  into  consideration,  the  elo- 
quence of  Henry  Clay,  of  Daniel  Webster,  and  of 
Fisher  Ames,  represents  the  most  ardent,  the  most 
serious,  and  the  purest  thought  yet  expressed  oratori- 
cally  on  the  floor  of  the  Union  Congress. 

HENRY   CLAY. 

It  was  said  of  Mr.  Clay  that  he  used  to  utter  the 
words  "  The  days  that  are  passed  and  gone  "  with  such 
melancholy  beauty  of  expression,  that  no  man  could 
hear  him  without  a  tear.  Whoever  saw  the  Ameri- 
can Senate  in  "  the  days  that  are  passed  and  gone," 
and  now  revisits  it,  will  feel  the  mournful  music  of 
that  phrase,  almost  as  if  the  tones  of  the  orator  still 
echoed  it ;  for  that  changed  Senate-chamber  will 
have,  to  him,  a  voiceless  eloquence  of  its  own.  Its 
days  of  oratoric  glory  are  "  passed  and  gone  "  ;  the 
golden  days  when  champions  met  on  its  arena, 
appointed  and  glittering  with  such  splendor  of  in- 
tellectual equipment,  as  to  suggest  the  permanent 
image  of  another  "  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold." 

The  place  of  high  debate  is  still  there ;  there  is 
the  long  semicircle  of  the  desks  of  the  Senators 
still,  —  its  outer  rim  crowned  with  the  little  gal- 
lery sweeping  round,  where  so  many  beautiful  eyes 
have  "  rained  influence,  and  adjudged  the  prize  "  of 
their  proudly  timid  approbation,  to  rival  Senators ; 


16  CONGRESS. 

there  are  the  three  chairs,  in  which  we  have  so  often 
seen  the  three  great  Senators  sitting,  not  ermined, 
but  each  of  them  robed  in  native  majesty  as  with  a 
garment ;  all  the  surroundings  are  still  the  same ; 
still  through  the  narrow  little  doors  in  the  wall,  the 
graceful  groups  glide  into  those  long  galleries,  and 
still  the  chairs  of  the  Senators  present  much  of  the 
manhood,  the  heroism,  and  the  wisdom  of  the  land. 

Yet,  as  the  boy  shall  never  know  a  love  like  first- 
love,  and  the  man  of  ambition  shall  never  again  see 
embodied  characters  like  those  which  first  awoke  his 
young  aspirings,  so  to  us  now,  whenever  we  gaze 
upon  it,  the  Senate-house  seems  lonely ;  and  in  all 
the  midst  of  its  moving  life,  we  feel  as  if  we  walked 
alone  with  monuments  and  epitaphs ;  sights  and 
forms  we  see  dimly  in  the  vanishing  distance,  sounds 
and  tones  fall  faintly  from  the  far-off  past,  and  all 
before  us  only  speaks  sadly,  as  the  prince  of  our 
orators  would  have  murmured  it  forth,  "  The  days 
which  are  passed  and  gone,  —  the  days  which  are 
passed  and  gone." 

It  was  our  good  fortune  often  to  hear  this  prince 
of  our  orators,  Mr.  Clay,  speak  in  the  Senate,  in 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  and  in  the  open 
air;  and  although  we  have  listened  to  the  chief 
speakers  of  the  day  at  home,  and  have  been  very 
lucky  in  opportunities  of  hearing  world-renowned 
debaters  abroad,  he  always  seemed  to  us  the  greatest 
natural  orator,  of  the  whole  army  of  eloquent  men. 
Two  occasions  especially,  upon  which  he  put  forth 


HENRY   CLAY.  17 

quite  distinct  styles  of  speech  and  manner,  are  viv- 
idly impressed  on  our  mind,  and  may  properly  intro- 
duce a  more  particular  description  of  his  oratory. 

The  first  of  these  occasions  was  on  the  day  when 
it  was  announced  to  Congress  that  Mr.  Calhoun  was 
dead.  It  had  been  known  to  the  city  the  day  before, 
which  was  Sunday,  and  the  next  day  a  great  crowd 
had  gathered  in  the  galleries  and  on  the  floor.  A 
solemn  expectation  evidently  pervaded  all,  of  hear- 
ing the  most  impressive  funeral  eloquence,  from  the 
most  celebrated  compeers  of  the  great  man  who 
was  dead.  The  whole  scene  was  awe-inspiring. 
Benton  was  in  his  place,  —  an  iron-looking  man,  — 
and  it  was  whispered  that  in  the  new-made  grave, 
animosities  would  sink,  and  that  even  his  voice 
would  rise  in  the  chorus  of  eulogium.  At  a  short 
distance  from  him  was  a  single  Senator's  chair,  the 
only  spot  unoccupied  in  that  thronged  hall.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  main  aisle,  sat  Webster,  dressed  in 
the  deepest  mourning,  his  massive  features  set  like 
stone,  with  a  monumental  look ;  seeming  far  gloomier 
and  more  sepulchral  than  they  looked,  when  no  very 
long  time  after,  in  full  Senatorial  costume,  his  own 
dead  form  lay  out  beneath  the  mighty  branches  of 
his  patriarchal  elm,  in  presence  of  America.  Near 
him  was  Mr.  Clay.  When  the  formal  announce- 
ment was  made,  there  was  a  profound  stillness.  No 
one  seemed  willing  to  rise  first,  to  give  voice  to  the 
sorrow  of  the  Senate.  There  sat  Benton,  Webster, 
Clay,  —  all  still  and  silent ;  and  the  great  crowd  were 


18  CONGRESS. 

hushed!  At  length,  Mr.  Webster  turned  his  head 
toward  Mr.  Clay,  as  if  he  would  say,  that  his  longer 
Congressional  career  peculiarly  entitled  him  to  open 
the  great  cadence  of  lamentation.  Slowly  and  qui- 
etly he  rose.  He  began  very  gently,  in  instinctive 
harmony  with  the  universal  feeling.  His  rare  voice, 
beautiful,  though  subdued  and  as  it  were  muffled, 
rose  gradually  as  he  pictured  the  younger  scenes  of 
his  association  with  his  friend.  And  as  he  drew  a 
rapid  view  of  his  domestic  relations,  and  descanted 
on  the  virtues  and  agreeable  excellences  of  the  wife 
who  had  cheered  the  long  campaign  of  the  political 
soldier,  grateful  recollections  thickened  on  his  mind ; 
the  lifeblood  began  to  push  its  way  into  dulled  mem- 
ories, and  his  eye  began  to  shine,  and  his  whole 
form  to  sway  about  gently  and  gracefully,  while  the 
tones  waxed  louder,  though  not  at  all  vehement,  but 
rather  more  and  more  pathetic  and  affecting.  Never 
shall  our  ears  forget  the  touching  melody  with  which 
he  pronounced  this  closing  period  of  a  sorrowing 
climax :  "  He  was  my  junior  in  years,  —  in  nothing 
else !  "  —  and  then  he  rested  in  the  gentle  tide  of  his 
words ;  he  turned  his  eyes  on  the  empty  chair ;  a 
moment  of  silence  intervened ;  then  his  accumu- 
lated weight  of  feeling  gushed  forth  in  one  brief 
moving  question,  as  he  gestured  toward  the  chair, 
"  When  shall  that  great  vacancy  be  filled  ?  "  For 
ever  shall  those  swelling  words,  "  that  great  vacancy," 
sound  and  resound  in  our  ears.  Their  tone  was  the 
tone  of  a  dirge,  and  of  a  panegyric,  and  a  prophecy 


HENRY   CLAY.  19 

combined.  "  Great,"  it  seemed  to  say,  — "  Great 
was  he  who  has  left  us,  mourned  by  the  people ; 
ne'er  shall  we  look  upon  his  like  again ! " 

The  other  occasion  was  one  which  displayed  quite 
a  different  order  of  talent  in  the  speaker.  It  was  in 
the  days  of  the  compromise  discussions  of  1850,  and 
that  famous  Adjustment  Bill  was  under  debate.  On 
the  day  previous,  a  variety  of  dilatory  and  opposing 
motions  had  been  made  in  the  Senate,  and  a  plenti- 
ful second  crop  had  been  promised  further,  by  Mr. 
Benton,  the  active  leader  of  the  adverse  forces.  Mr. 
Clay  had  been  laboring  during  the  intervening  night 
to  conceive  some  plan  which,  at  the  same  time  that 
it  should  be  "  in  order,"  should  head  off  this  kind  of 
opposition.  He  thought  he  had  hit  upon  it,  and  at 
the  first  opportunity  he  rose  in  his  place  to  present  it. 
With  a  sweet  voice  and  tranquil  manner  he  set  it 
forth,  and  concluded  by  moving  its  adoption.  Then 
he  paused,  —  all  were  still.  He  looked  across  the 
Senate-chamber,  he  fixed  his  eye  on  the  hostile 
leader,  who  sat  on  the  other  extreme  of  the  semi- 
circle, with  all  the  Bentonian  thunder  lowering  on 
his  resolute  brow.  As  their  eyes  met,  Clay's  expres- 
sion changed,  —  u  Glory  and  triumph  o'er  his  aspect 
burst,  like  an  East  Indian  sunrise  on  the  main."  He 
lifted  his  arm,  he  shook  it  menacingly  at  the  rival 
chief.  "  And  now  let  us  see,"  said  he,  in  a  voice  of 
thunder,  "  whether  the  pacification  of  this  country  is 
longer  to  be  hindered."  And  then,  with  eyes  per- 
fectly in  a  blaze,  his  long  arms  swinging  around  him, 


20  CONGRESS. 

i 

his  gray  hair  flurrying  on  his  brow,  and  his  tall 
form  swaying  about,  and  sometimes  bending  almost 
double  with  his  impassioned  vehemence,  he  dashed 
into  a  brilliant  picture  of  the  prospect,  which  he 
thought  the  Compromise  opened  for  America.  Soon, 
however,  he  seemed  to  be  admonished  that  his  physi- 
cal vigor  was  no  longer  capable  of  the  sustained  and 
prolonged  flights,  in  which  he  had  once  indulged ; 
his  swelling  voice  sunk  a  little,  and  in  a  tone  of  inex- 
pressible richness  "  Ah,"  said  he,  "  I  left  a  sick- 
room this  morning,  at  the  call  of  my  country  !  "  For 
a  few  broken  sentences  he  drooped,  then  once  more 
he  awoke  and  sprung  into  full  life ;  once  more  he 
grew  menacing  and  triumphant ;  his  form  expanded, 
his  presence  grew  loftier,  and  his  tones  were  trum- 
peted forth  with  an  exulting  confidence,  as  if  a  sibyl- 
line inspiration  possessed  him;  he  was  all  himself 
again,  and  we  felt  that  we  indeed  were  looking  on 
the  famous  orator,  in  his  appropriate  scene. 

And  now,  if,  turning  from  these  spectacles  of  his 
eloquence,  we  consi^fer  what  it  did,  we  shall  see  how 
worthy  it  is  of  careful  study.  Surely  we  may  well 
study  that  eloquence,  which  infused  his  own  elec- 
tric spirit  into  this  whole  nation ;  making  itself  felt 
equally  on  the  floor  of  lukewarm  State  legislatures 
and  on  the  deck  of  the  Constitution  frigate,  as  she 
cleared  for  action,  in  the  immortal  sea-fight :  an  elo- 
quence which  shivered  the  dynasty  of  Jackson  in 
the  person  of  his  successor,  and  over  several  admin- 
istrations exercised  the  influence  of  a  modem  "  Mayor 


HENRY   CLAY.  21 

of  the  Palace  "  ;  which  almost  alone  sustained  what 
was  termed  The  American  System  of  Politics  ;  and 
above  all,  an  eloquence  which,  through  many  chang- 
ing years,  grappled  to  his  own  heart,  as  with  hooks 
of  steel,  a  million  of  other  hearts;  forcing  a  great 
party,  overflowing  with  genius,  to  keep  the  broad 
ensign  of  "  Harry  of  the  West "  nailed  at  their  mast- 
head, through  a  series  of  political  campaigns,  every 
one  of  them  as  ruinous  to  the  ambition  and  the 
avarice  of  his  followers,  as  those  which  left  the  Great 
Frederick  deserted  in  the  palace  at  Potsdam,  to  drink 
the  poison  alone,  after  his  fatal  fields ;  —  this  elo- 
quence surely  will  well  repay  our  study. 

Henry  Clay  was  an  orator  by  nature.  He  had  not 
the  eloquence  of  the  schools.  The  scholastic  pre- 
cepts of  Cicero  in  the  treatise  on  oratory,  he  knew 
nothing  about.  No  concealed  and  flowing  rhythm 
gave  the  undefinable  charm  of  composition  to  his 
words  ;  they  trooped  forth  spontaneously,  gushing, 
glowing,  conquering.  He  had  the  eloquence  of 
character,  of  wisdom,  and  of  action.  Those  were 
the  three  pillars  of  his  grand  power.  He  had  a  char- 
acter magnanimous,  chivalric,  warm-hearted,  remind- 
ing us  rather  of  the  Homeric  hero,  than  the  Yankee 
politician ;  a  sagacious  wisdom,  broad,  comprehen- 
sive, fore-casting,  ready,  and  intuitive  ;  and  lastly,  an 
action,  wholly  unstudied,  based  upon  extraordinary 
native  gifts,  developed  and  trained  up  by  exercise, 
without  rule. 

The  simple  story  of  his  birth,  and  growth,  and 


22  CONGRESS. 

glory  is  well  known  to  every  American.  How  he 
was  born  in  Virginia,  the  nursery  of  great  men,  and 
was  brought  up  by  a  poor  but  proud  mother,  with  a 
very  elementary  and  meagre  education ;  how  he 
never  went  to  college,  but  carried  the  meal  bags  to 
and  from  the  mill,  and  was  called  "  the  mill-boy  of 
the  Slashes,"  and  when  old  enough,  studied  text- 
books a  little,  and  crossed  the  borders  to  Kentucky 
to  practise  law,  having  as  the  goal  of  his  expectation, 
as  he  afterwards  said,  "  a  practice  of  three  hundred 
dollars  a  year  "  ;  and  the  tale  of  that  first  trembling 
and  stammering  appearance  before  a  debating  so- 
ciety, in  which  three  times  he  vainly  undertook  to 
open  a  speech  with  the  inappropriate  prefix  "  Gentle- 
men of  the  Jury  "  ;  and,  finally,  how  his  genius,  all 
untutored  as  it  was,  broke  forth  with  invincible 
splendor  upon  Kentucky,  and  swept  him  onward  by 
popular  suffrage  from  glory  to  glory,  till,  by  universal 
acclamation,  he  stood  confessed  Chief  of  the  Senate 
and  Tribune  of  the  People ;  —  all  this  outline  of  his 
life  is  universally  familiar,  and  we  explore  in  vain, 
therefore,  the  sources  of  his  eloquence  in  any  learned 
training,  or  all-accomplished  art.  The  fountains  of 
that  Nile  spring  elsewhere.  But  he  appears  to  have 
been  born  with  a  character  built  on  a  large  scale, 
and  the  circumstances  of  his  youth  and  his  early 
manhood,  although  not  very  favorable  to  intellectual 
growth,  were  peculiarly  calculated  to  ennoble  and  to 
expand  this,  his  grand  gift  of  character  ;  for  there,  in 
this  character,  thus  developed,  was  hidden  the  main- 
spring of  his  eloquence. 


HENRY  CLAY.  23 

When  he  stepped  out  into  life,  he  found  himself 
in  the  midst  of  a  new  and  almost  pioneer  society, 
ardent  and  passionate,  bold  and  brave ;  untram- 
melled by  conventionalities,  and  wild  and  free  as 
nature  around  them,  as  yet  invaded  only,  not  de- 
stroyed. Among  such  associations  the  native  ele- 
ments of  a  man's  character  would  develop  spon- 
taneously, irregularly  but  freely;  like  the  luxuriant 
growths  of  their  own  forests.  A  large  and  liberal 
way  of  looking  at  things,  a  bold  and  dashing  man- 
ner of  talking  about  them,  very  different  from  the 
cramped  and  stilted  phraseology  of  books  ;  a  courage 
undaunted,  and  kindred  to  that  of  the  immediate 
predecessors  of  the  men  around  him,  —  the  explorers 
of  forests  and  slayers  of  beasts  ;  a  vigorous  and 
vehement  energy  in  carrying  out  every  enterprise, 
whether  of  study  or  of  action,  very  different  from 
the  namby-pamby  ardor  of  a  mere  book-worm,  weak 
and  literary ;  and  a  habit  of  acting  from  desultory, 
but  strong  and  passionate  impulses;  —  these  were 
the  traits  of  character,  which,  lying  originally  in 
Clay,  were  fostered  by  Kentuckian  life.  But  the 
freedom  and  expansiveness  of  a  new  and  unconfined 
society  formed  by  no  means  the  only  moral  atmos- 
phere of  his  development.  The  Revolution  was  just 
over.  His  youth  saw  what  was  still  the  heroic  age 
of  the  Republic.  The  heroes  who  had  sworn  before 
God,  that  "  sink  or  swim  "  they  gave  their  lives  and 
sacred  honor  to  their  country,  were  still  walking 
among  the  people;  lingering  a  little,  as  if  to  give 


24  CONGRESS. 

their  farewell  benediction  to  the  nation  whose  in- 
fancy they  had  baptized  with  blood.  Still  the 
golden  age  of  the  sentiments  of  the  people  con- 
tinued, still  the  brazen  age  of  the  commerce  of  the 
people  had  not  opened.  They  had  gone  to  war 
with  a  terrible  nation,  for  an  opinion ;  they  had 
kept  up  the  war,  and  kept  up  their  own  hearts,  by 
the  interchange  of  sentiments,  such  as  had  been 
uttered  in  all  time,  by  the  most  noble  men  of  our 
race,  —  by  Roman  and  Athenian  lovers  of  liberty, 
by  Christian  martyrs,  by  the  lovers  of  democracies, 
who  had  died  victims  of  tyrants.  Multitudes  still 
lived  who  had  heard  these  sentiments  echoing  round 
the  land.  Multitudes  of  memories,  and  traditions  of 
the  great  deeds  done  to  back  them,  were  still  cur- 
rent. The  whole  heart  of  the  nation  was  warm,  the 
whole  mind  of  the  nation  was  lifted  up.  In  this 
national  atmosphere  of  noble  souls,  the  high  heart 
of  Clay  swelled  with  congenial  fires.  He  took 
the  young  flood  of  the  Republic,  and  rose  on  its 
strong  tide. 

But  hardly  had  he  assumed  the  position  of  one  of 
the  leaders  in  Congress,  when  he  was  summoned  to 
play  a  part  which  still  more  fully  developed  all  the 
grandeur  of  his  qualities.  Our  new  nation  was 
recognized  as  existing  de  facto  and  de  jure,  in  fact 
and  in  law,  but  it  had  no  social  position  in  the 
family  of  nations.  The  new  flag  seemed  to  float 
timidly  among  the  battle-stained  banners  of  the 
ancient  countries  of  immemorial  renown.  Messages 


HENRY   CLAY.  25 

from  the  new  state,  remonstrant  against  the  viola- 
tions of  her  rights,  were  indifferently  listened  to  by 
princes  and  potentates.  Upon  the  whole,  the  eagle 
of  the  Republic  had  no  thunderbolt  in  its  talons. 
The  eye  of  Henry  Clay  saw  this,  and  his  great 
heart  felt  it  keenly  and  sadly;  and  when  the  pre- 
sumption of  Great  Britain  reached  its  climax,  in 
closing  the  ports  of  the  Continent  to  our  strug- 
gling commerce,  and  invading  the  sanctity  of  the 
deck  of  our  ships,  then,  his  voice  rose  like  a  trumpet, 
bidding  his  countrymen  gird  on  the  sword  once  more  ; 
then,  he  flung  out  the  famous  motto  of  our  second 
war,  "  Free  Trade  and  Sailors'  Rights  "  ;  then,  he  de- 
clared that  the  sailor  on  the  deck  of  a  Yankee  ship 
was  on  sacred  ground ;  that  the  flag  should  float 
a  protecting  ^Egis  over  him.  His  inspiring  and 
just  sentiments,  the  echoes  of  the  Revolution,  rang 
clarion  voices  through  the  land.  He  wrested  from 
Madison  the  declaration  of  war,  and  took  at  once 
the  leadership  of  the  people.  His  eloquence  was 
a  pillar  of  flame,  marshalling  them  to  their  proper 
place  among  nations.  The  auspicious  close  of  that 
war,  by  its  moral  influence,  it  is  admitted,  gave  us 
the  rank  of  a  first-class  power  upon  the  earth ;  and 
all  the  time  the  seat  and  fountain  of  that  splendid 
struggle  of  national  pride  was  in  the  bosom  of 
Henry  Clay.  He,  chiefly,  stirred  the  people  up  to  it. 
He,  most  of  all  the  political  leaders,  supported  it,  in 
all  its  shifting  phases,  with  undrooping  spirit  and 
lion-hearted  daring.  He  cheered  on  the  political 
3 


26  CONGRESS. 

columns,  and  upon  his  Atlantean  shoulders,  chiefly, 
the  contest  rested. 

The  conduct  of  this  vast  crisis  in  our  national 
destinies,  from  the  hour  when,  as  some  say  on  his 
knees,  he  wrung  from  President  Madison  a  reluctant 
assent  to  the  first  declared  breach  with  England,  on, 
through  the  fluctuating  vicissitudes  of  the  struggle, 
to  the  closing  and  crowning  victory  of  New  Orleans, 
taxed  and  tried  his  noblest  qualities ;  his  love  of 
country,  the  "  charity  of  native  land,"  —  as  Senator 
Seward,  eulogizing  him,  said,  —  his  courage,  the 
grandeur  of  his  fortitude  and  his  indomitable  reso- 
lution,—  all  were  quickened  into  new  life.  In  that 
day  it  was  that  his  character,  which,  as  we  have  said, 
was  the  mainspring  of  his  eloquence,  took  its  last 
development.  Then  the  seal  was  set  upon  it.  And 
that  completed  character  proved  to  be  one  as  high- 
toned  in  its  honor  and  enterprise  as  the  Cavalier  of 
Virginia  in  his  chivalry ;  as  religious  in  its  patriot- 
ism as  the  Puritan  of  New  England  in  his  piety ; 
a  Bayard  he  was,  in  his  courage  and  gallantry,  and 
hardly  behind  Washington,  in  his  love  of  our  country. 
The  horizon  of  his  heart  took  in  the  whole  land. 

The  Buonapartean  soldier  saw,  in  the  Imperial 
banners,  the  symbol  of  all  he  worshipped  and 
loved.  So,  in  the  banner  of  the  Republic,  Henry 
Clay  saw,  with  a  poetic  passion,  the  symbol  which 
marshalled  the  steps  of  his  public  life.  As  the  ring 
of  marriage  to  the  bride,  as  the  altar  of  his  vows  to 
the  bridegroom,  was  that  solemn  and  radiant  em- 


HENRY  CLAY.  27 

blem  of  the  Union  to  him.  Each  of  its  stars,  and  all 
of  its  stripes,  were  mirrored  in  the  depths  of  his  soul. 

We  have  heard  his  earlier  contemporaries  say 
that,  up  to  the  time  of  the  war,  his  eloquence  was 
milder,  more  deprecatory  and  persuasive,  as  be- 
came a  young  man;  but  ever  afterwards,  it  was 
bolder,  mightier,  more  confident  and  terrible.  In 
this  respect,  his  career  somewhat  resembled  the 
course  of  Edmund  Burke  ;  who,  in  the  earlier  half 
of  his  life,  —  that  devoted  mainly  to  literature, — 
was  much  more  amiable  and  winning  than  storm- 
ing and  commanding ;  but  whose  qualities,  rare- 
fied in  the  lighter  air  of  letters,  seemed  to  con- 
dense and  darken  into  thick  clouds  of  passion,  in 
the  heavier  and  more  murky  atmosphere  of  political 
strife.  The  Kentucky  members  of  Congress  used  to 
say  in  Washington,  that  no  one  had  really  heard 
Clay  in  all  the  kindling  pathos  of  his  passion,  who 
had  not  heard  him  in  his  youth  argue  a  criminal 
case  before  a  Kentucky  jury.  Originally,  the  sunny, 
genial  nature  of  Clay  was  uppermost,  but  afterwards, 
when  contest,  and  sorrow,  and  growth  gave  him  his 
full  development,  he  had  the  volcano  as  well  as  the 
sunshine  in  his  composition. 

It  is  necessary  to  revive  these  reminiscences  of  the 
opening  career  and  early  education  of  Clay,  rightly 
to  estimate  his  peculiar  eloquence,  and  to  get  a  clear 
idea  of  its  sources.  There  are  many  kinds  of  ora- 
tors. There  is  the  magisterial  orator  of  intellect, 
imposing  and  Websterian;  there  is  the  gaudy  and 


28  CONGRESS. 

polished   utterance   of    the   rhetorician,   captivating 
with  meretricious  ornament ;  and  there  is  the  orator 
of  character   and  manner,  swaying   masses   like  a 
commander.     To  this  last  order  Mr.  Clay  primarily 
belonged.     Though  we  see  also  in  him  the  action  of 
an  intellect  free  and  large  ;    and  this,   as  we  shall 
presently  notice  more  particularly,  came  materially  to 
the  aid  of  his  effect.     While,  of  the  arts  and  graces 
of  the  rhetorician,  the  set  orator  of  the  schools,  the 
ornament  rather  than  the  ruler  of  public  bodies,  he 
had   nothing.     Of   narrow   education,    not  bred  in 
very  polished  scenes,  and  never  much  given  to  read- 
ing books,  his  culture  was  always  chiefly  gathered 
from  the  society  of  men,  with  whom  he  came  in 
contact,   and  the  enterprises  in  which  he  was  en- 
gaged.    We    shall    look    in  vain    in   his    reported 
speeches    for    scholastic   beauties    or  literary  gems. 
In  vain,  shall  we  seek  to  trace  a  learned  fancy  in  an 
affluent  imagery.     Nothing  like  the  polished  periods 
of   Edward    Everett   will   greet   our    sense   of    the 
harmony   of   numbers ;  nothing  like   that  phantom 
pageantry,  conjured  up  by  the  impassioned  fancy  of 
Rufus  Choate,  will  stalk  in  grand  procession  before 
our  mind's  eye,  as  on  some  mimic  stage.     No,  his 
eloquence  was  fed  from  other  fountains.     He  had 
the  words  which  he  had  picked  up  from  a  few  books 
and  from  many  men  ;  some  of  them  good,  some  bad  ; 
like  the  variety  of  human  nature  which  he  had  fallen 
in  with.     He  shook  hands  with  the  hunters  of  the 
West,  and  the  scholars  of  the  East,  with  wagon- 


HENRY   CLAY.  29 

boys  from  Ohio,  and  presidents  from  Virginia ;  and 
from  them  all  he  had  gathered  and  garnered  up  his 
common  but  copious  vocabulary.  He  had  the  trite 
figures  of  speech  and  turns  of  illustration,  taken  from 
translations  of  the  classics  and  the  crude  speeches 
of  half-formed  rhetoricians ;  and  both  words  and  im- 
ages he  used  off-hand.  He  never  could  put  his  mind 
into  the  harness  of  prepared  paragraphs.  Set  senten- 
ces got  up  like  Sheridan's,  or  even  premeditated  like 
Grattan's,  never  rushed  with  prearranged  fervor  from 
his  lips.  Nor  in  any  way  did  he  indulge  in  epideic- 
tic  oratory,  or  what  we  may  call  show-off  speeches. 
He  spoke  as  the  battle  of  debate  demanded,  instant, 
fervid,  to  the  very  point  of  the  moment.  There,  in 
his  old  days,  he  used  to  sit  in  the  Senate,  through 
the  long  hours  and  weary  stages  of  discussion ;  quiet, 
eager,  watching,  —  his  eagle  eye  and  ready  ear  intent 
upon  the  scene,  like  Buonaparte  surveying  his  battle  ; 
and  as  the  fight  wavered  with  the  heady  currents  of 
passion,  he  would  see  where  it  was  necessary  for 
"  The  Old  Guard "  to  charge.  Then  Henry  Clay 
would  rise ;  in  his  own  single  person,  he  seemed  to 
embody  "  The  Old  Guard "  of  his  party ;  calmly 
and  proudly  he  would  look  round  upon  the  Senators, 
as  the  smile  of  triumph  glanced  across  the  faces  of 
his  friends.  Then,  reviewing  the  immediate  debate, 
he  would  launch  forth,  on  the  instant,  a  shower  of 
telling  thoughts  upon  the  pressing  points  of  contro- 
versy ;  and  then,  how  he  would  make  a  charge  upon 
the  mean  ambitions  of  demagogues,  and  rally  the 
3* 


30  CONGRESS. 

higher  thoughts,  and  let  loose  the  imprisoned  emo- 
tions of  men.  He  had  not  time  for  preparation  of 
speeches,  for  choice  diction,  for  culled  periods.  Indeed, 
the  warmth  and  movement  of  his  powers  when  in 
action  was  such,  that  he  could  never  get  along  very 
satisfactorily  even  with  an  apt  or  elegant  quotation. 
A  little  anecdote  is  told  of  him,  forcibly  illustrating 
this.  Anticipating  a  speech  on  one  occasion,  he 
laughingly  asked  the  Representative  of  Boston,  Mr. 
Winthrop,  to  give  him  the  quotation  about  "  a  rose 
by  any  other  name  smelling  as  sweet."  This  he  wrote 
out  on  a  little  slip  of  paper,  and  when  in  the  march 
of  his  speech  he  arrived  at  its  point  of  introduction, 
he  began  to  fumble  among  his  papers  —  still  talking 
on,  though  —  for  his  poetry.  Alas  !  he  could  not  find 
it ;  but  as  unfortunately,  with  too  precipitate  a  confi- 
dence, he  had  started  in  the  quotation,  and  had 
already  got  off  the  words  "  A  rose,"  it  was  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  finish  it  somehow ;  something  at 
all  events  must  be  done  with  the  "rose."  So  after 
a  momentary  balk  and  a  prodigious  pinch  of  snuff, 
he  abruptly  wound  up  his  attempted  rhetorical  bra- 
vura, by  saying,  to  the  astonishment  of  ears  polite, 
and  very  much  we  may  imagine  to  the  enforcement 
of  his  argument,  "  A  rose, — where'er  you  find  it,  still 
is  sweet."  A  great  and  scholarly  orator  of  New 
England  we  have  heard  say  that,  during  his  brief 
term  in  the  Senate,  he  has  more  than  once  seen  the 
moment,  in  listening  to  Clay,  when  he  would  have 
given  moneys  numbered  for  the  privilege  of  thrust- 


HENRY   CLAY.  31 

ing  a  quotation  in  his  lips.  Not  at  all  then  in  the 
style  of  thought,  the  composition,  or  the  diction  of 
Mr.  Clay's  speeches  shall  we  find  any  marvels  of 
eloquent  power.  That  power  was  hidden  in  his 
lofty  and  Roman-like  character,  and  in  his  fervent 
sensibility.  He  always  appealed  with  electric  fervor 
to  the  nobler  thoughts  and  the  loftier  passions  of  men. 
Some  speakers  make  their  onslaught  on  the  preju- 
dices and  the  more  vulgar  passions  of  their  hearers; 
some  to  the  higher  and  more  hallowed  impulses,  — 
the  nobilities  of  human  nature.  In  short,  some 
appeal  to  men's  greatness,  some  to  their  littleness. 
And  those  who  are  themselves  great  always  prefer 
the  former.  It  was  said  of  another  orator,  that 
"the  man  seemed  always  greater  than  his  word." 
And  so,  as  men  looked  on  Clay's  chivalrous  and 
dauntless  front,  they  felt  that  there  was  something 
behind  the  sentences,  far  greater  than  the  sentences. 
There  are  men  whose  speeches  seem  richer  and 
grander  than  they  seem  themselves,  and  these  men 
continually  surprise  us.  In  studying  such  orators 
we  must  analyze  their  compositions  and  their  culture 
carefully,  if  we  want  to  find  them  out.  But  with 
the  school  of  speakers,  in  the  van  of  whose  ranks 
Clay  stood,  we  must  study  the  men,  not  the  speeches ; 
we  must  look  at  character,  rather  than  culture. 

The  intellect  of  Mr.  Clay  was  large.  He  had 
strong,  wise,  wide  views ;  the  product  of  his  under- 
standing and  his  judgment  combined.  We  once 
heard  a  celebrated  Senator  say  of  his  eloquence,  that 


32  CONGRESS. 

its  predominant  element  after  all  was  "  wisdom." 
And  we  can  still  see  apparent,  through  even  the  news- 
paper reports  of  his  speeches,  a  large,  broad,  capa- 
cious comprehension  of  public  affairs.  His  mind,  on 
three  capital  occasions,  was  expanded  and  energized 
to  its  utmost  capacity.  These  were  the  critical  times 
of  the  War  of  1812,  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and 
the  Tariff  Compromise  of  1832.  To  have  led  his 
country,  in  three  such  hours  as  these ;  to  have  spread 
his  mind  over  the  whole  field  of  her  multitudinous 
and  jarring  interests,  and  grasped  them  all,  and  pro- 
vided for  them  all,  was  a  most  severe  discipline  'of 
all  the  intellectual  powers.  Thus,  his  mind  may  be 
said  to  have  had  three  great  periods  of  stretching 
and  strengthening.  Now  this  widening  and  enlarg- 
ing of  mind  combined  powerfully,  with  his  fire  and 
elevation  of  character,  to  give  his  oratory  its  com- 
manding impressiveness  ;  a  sort  of  attribute  of  gen- 
eral grandeur.  Men  felt  as  they  sat  before  him, 
that  no  smooth-lipped  Belial  was  speaking,  whose 
"  tongue  dropped  manna,  and  could  make  the  worse 
appear  the  better  reason  "  ;  but  one  who  seemed  for 
dignity  composed,  and  from  whose  lips  flowed 
princely  counsel. 

We  said  in  the  beginning  of  this  view,  that  the 
eloquence  we  are  trying  to  describe  was  that  of 
character,  of  wisdom,  and  of  action.  And  in  this 
last  term,  "  action,"  we  include  the  whole  manage- 
ment and  display  of  the  body  of  the  speaker.  The 
body  is  the  machine,  through  which  all  the  soul  and 


HENEY   CLAY.  33 

intellect  are  made  palpable  to  us,  in  voice,  gesture, 
and,  in  one  comprehensive  word,  —  action.  More 
important  even  than  sagacious  thought,  or  sublime 
sentiment,  is  the  action  by  which  it  is  expressed  and 
made  visible.  So  at  least  he  said,  whom  ah1  are 
agreed  to  call  the  foremost  speaker  of  all  this  world. 
And  this  action  was  in  Mr.  Clay  admirable,  rising 
often  to  a  dramatic  intensity  and  beauty.  To  see 
Edmund  Kean  act,  it  was  said,  was  like  reading 
Shakespeare  by  flashes  of  lightning ;  to  hear  Henry 
Clay  utter  the  sentiment  of  America,  was  like  hear- 
ing the  Sibyl  announce  the  oracles  of  the  Republic. 
You  felt  the  pulse-beats  of  a  young  continent. 

How  shall  we  picture  that  magical  manner  ?  How 
describe  that  magnetism  which  radiated  from  his 
soul,  round  and  round  among  his  hearers,  through 
their  very  life-blood?  No  canvas  can  body  forth 
the  great  orator  in  action.  Healey's  painting  of 
Webster  replying  to  Hayne,  whatever  it  may  be  as 
a  work  of  art,  gives  no  notion  at  all  of  the  Demos- 
thenic "  action."  As  well  might  you  try  to  paint 
lightning  as  to  paint  the  flash  which  for  an  instant, 
from  the  true  orator's  eyes,  blazes  into  your  very  soul ; 
or  to  catch  the  terrible  inflections  of  the  few  momen- 
tary tones,  which  storm  the  very  citadel  of  your 
mind  and  senses.  The  actor,  Booth,  whom,  alas !  we 
shall  never  see  again,  in  the  play  of  Pescara,  when 
the  heroine  asks  her  father  who  shall  prevent  her 
nuptials  with  her  lover,  used  to  utter  the  single 
monosyllable  "  I,"  in  such  a  manner  that  it  struck 


34  CONGRESS. 

like  a  dagger  to  the  heart  of  every  one  who  heard 
him.  A  manner  though,  of  course,  utterly  incapable 
of  being  described.  While,  then,  we  do  not  under- 
take to  give  anything  like  a  daguerreotype  of  Mr. 
Clay's  action,  we  may  by  words,  which,  according  to 
Edmund  Burke's  theory  in  the  Essay  on  the  Sublime 
and  Beautiful,  are  far  superior,  for  painting,  to 
colors  and  canvas,  —  by  words  we  may  present  a 
faint  likeness  of  that  wizard-like  manner.  Con- 
spicuous among  his  physical  attributes  was  his 
ardent  temperament.  His  blood  was  warm,  and  as 
easily  set  flowing  as  if  it  had  been  distilled  in  tropi- 
cal airs  ;  quick  and  strong  were  his  pulse-beats.  In 
the  iciest  days  of  winter,  he  said  he  could  always 
keep  himself  physically  warm  by  the  exercise  of 
speaking.  This  heat  of  temperament  is  indispen- 
sable to  the  orator,  to  enable  him  quickly  and  vigor- 
ously to  bring  into  play  all  his  intellectual  resources. 
A  fine  engine  with  a  bad  furnace  would  be  a  pretty 
poor  working  machine.  A  lethargic  man,  even  if 
endowed  with  bright  wits  and  generous  sentiment, 
can  only  summon  them  to  action  on  high  occasions. 
But  the  genuine  orator  must  kindle  always  at  the 
word  of  command.  This  liveliness  of  physical  sen- 
sibility, moreover,  enables  the  outer  world  to  act  with 
much  more  power  on  all  the  moral  and  impulsive 
sensibilities  of  one's  nature.  A  man  whose  system 
is  all  in  a  glow  feels  all  that  is  going  on  around  him, 
and  all  the  thoughts  and  sentiments  thereby  sug- 
gested, much  more  vividly  than  if  calm  or  half  asleep. 


HENRY   CLAY.  35 

Indeed,  we  have  seen  a  celebrated  temperance  lec- 
turer hold  an  audience  by  the  hour  together,  when 
there  was  neither  strength  in  his  thought  nor  beauty 
in  his  words,  solely  by  the  sympathetic  fervors  of 
physical  animation,  which  his  screaming  energy 
awoke  within  them.  In  his  case  he  had  nothing  to 
go  upon,  but  temperament.  It  was  merely,  if  we 
may  be  allowed  the  phrase,  the  eloquence  of  blood. 
When  Clay  spoke  he  was  often  in  a  physical  fever ; 
as  he  went  on,  some  great  thought  would  strike 
athwart  his  mind,  or  some  great  vision  flash  upon  his 
fancy  of  the  possible  programme  of  American  des- 
tiny, and  then  —  heavens !  how  the  blood  mounted 
glistening  in  his  broad,  bright  face,  and  gushing  on 
his  burning  brain.  Then  that  homely  physiognomy 
would  be,  in  an  instant,  illuminated  with  a  sort  of 
oratorical  sunshine;  the  spirit  of  a  commanding  grace 
would  descend  upon  him,  almost  it  would  seem  as  if 
a  halo  hovered  round  his  head,  and  with  an  apostolic 
beauty  it  were  absolutely  transfigured. 

In  all  the  leading  bodily  essentials  of  the  orator, 
his  personelle,  Nature  had  been  prodigal  to  him  of 
the  means  of  producing  effects.  His  figure  was  tall 
and  lithe,  and  from  its  spareness  looked  even  taller 
than  it  really  was.  It  was  apparently  easily  put 
together,  so  as  to  swing  about  in  gesture  pliantly, 
and  with  marked  but  dignified  grace ;  although  con- 
sidered by  itself  when  not  in  action,  it  would  by  no 
means  be  thought  a  symmetrically  proportioned  form. 
But  when  thus  moving  and  swaying,  its  angles  and 


36  CONGRESS. 

lengths  disappeared,  and  the  high-towering  body, 
and  long-sweeping  arms  become  most  efficient  con- 
tributors to  the  grand  result.  His  face  was  large, 
and  rendered  very  striking  by  the  ample  and  lofty 
brow  which  surmounted  it ;  fit  temple  to  crown  that 
gallant  mind,  which  one  look  assured  you  it  en- 
shrined. Cicero's  mouth  and  ears  were  remarkably 
large,  and,  strange  to  tell,  some  critics  have  set  these 
down  as  points  in  a  true-born  orator's  make ;  marks 
as  infallible  as  the  points  of  blood  in  "  a  thorough- 
bred." If,  indeed,  these  are  unmistakable  tests,  — 
ear-marks  of  a  native  orator,  —  then  was  Mr.  Clay 
vastly  the  debtor  of  Nature.  For  his  mouth  was  — 
we  had  almost  said  —  gigantic.  Certainly  it  was 
huge.  It  always  reminded  us  of  the  stone  mouth  of 
Cheops.  It  looked  as  if  Nature  had  forgotten  to 
give  him  any  aperture  there,  on  his  first  being  turned 
off  from  her  mould,  and  afterwards  let  some  journey- 
man mend  him,  by  splitting  an  opening  with  a 
broad-axe.  In  his  old  days,  when  the  men  crowded 
round  him  for  a  shake  of  his  hand,  and  the  women 
beset  him  for  a  kiss  of  his  patriarchal  lips,  it  was 
remarked  that  his  capacity  of  gratifying  this  latter 
demand  was  unlimited ;  for  the  ample  dimensions 
of  his  kissing  apparatus  enabled  him  completely  to 
rest  one  side  of  it,  while  the  other  side  was  upon 
active  duty.  But  there  have  been  times,  when  we 
have  seen  that  broad  and  uncouth  mouth  hurling 
forth  words  so  sharp  and  hard-hitting,  they  were  wor- 
thy of  the  orator  of  old  who  was  said  "  to  eat  swords 


HENRY   CLAY.  37 

and  iron  "  ;  while  again  we  have  seen  it  radiant  with 
good-humor,  looking  absolutely  handsome,  and  pour- 
ing forth  tones  which  called  right  up  before  you  the 
very  sunny-side  of  life.  His  eyes  were  powerful. 
They  were  not  deep  set.  They  did  not  lower  upon 
his  enemy  with  torrid  gleam  from  cavernous  depths 
like  Webster's ;  but  they  sparkled  and  blazed  upon 
the  adversary,  as  if  set  in  the  very  front  rank  of  the 
battle.  They  were  of  a  grayish  blue,  and  in  his 
excitements  they  seemed  to  take  all  hues  of  that 
color,  from  the  light  and  sparkling  to  the  deep  sea- 
blue  ;  now  shining  as  "  the  glittering  eye  "  of  the 
Ancient  Mariner,  now  intense,  and  "  darkly,  deeply, 
beautifully  blue."  His  whole  head  taken  together 
was  large  and  rather  imposing  from  its  breadth,  and 
its  height  in  proportion  to  its  breadth.  Phrenologists 
used  to  estimate  it  at  over  seven  inches  in  diameter, 
while  its  height  gave  him  something  of  that  impres- 
sive majesty  of  mien,  which  history  has  attributed 
to  the  whole  family  of  the  first  Greek  Orator- States- 
man, Pericles.  The  complexion,  in  which  often  so 
much  of  the  impressiveness  of  physiognomy  secretly 
resides,  was  not  in  his  case  peculiar  or  marked.  Care 
had  not  withered  it  into  the  bloodless  parchment-hue 
of  Calhoun's  lineaments,  nor  deepened  it  into,  a 
smoky  swarthiness.  It  was  natural  and  healthy. 
Years  wrote  their  lines  about  the  face  well-defined 
and  square,  but  not  deep-furrowed.  His  temperament 
was  rather  of  the  sanguine  than  the  bilious  order, 
though  he  had  enough  of  the  latter  for  hard  work. 
4 


38  CONGRESS. 

But  take  him  for  all  in  all,  "  as  he  stood  in  his 
boots,"  as  the  backwoodsmen  say,  his  presence  was 
magisterial.  And  sometimes,  as  that  high  form 
dilated  and  lifted  in  some  grand  accent  of  com- 
mand, he  looked  more  than  the  magistrate;  he 
looked  a  more  than  mortal  lawgiver;  and  he  pre- 
sented a  living  and  speaking  example  of  the  truth 
of  the  inspiring  declaration,  Man  is  born  "  a  little 
lower  than  the  angels." 

But  after  all,  his  quick,  glowing,  tropical  tempera- 
ment, his  lofty  form  and  swaying  arms,  his  glittering 
eye  and  flurrying  hair,  and  his  gallant  bearing,  taken 
all  together,  were  not  a  more  efficient  arm  of  oratorio 
battle,  than  one  other  grand  element  of  his  power, 
which  in  its  effectiveness  equalled  all  the  rest  of  his 
physical  qualifications  ;  and  that  was  his  wonderful 
voice.  No  orator's  voice  superior  to  his  in  quality, 
in  compass  and  in  management,  has  ever,  we  venture 
to  say,  been  raised  upon  this  continent.  It  touched 
every  note  in  the  whole  gamut  of  human  suscepti- 
bilities ;  it  was  sweet,  and  soft,  and  lulling  as  a 
mother's  to  her  babe.  It  could  be  made  to  float 
into  the  chambers  of  the  ear,  as  gently  as  descend- 
ing snow-flakes  on  the  sea ;  and  again  it  shook  the 
Senate,  stormy,  brain-shaking,  filling  the  air  with  its 
absolute  thunders.  That  severe  trial  of  any  speaker, 
to  speak  in  the  open  air,  he  never  shrank  from. 
Musical  yet  mighty,  that  marvellous  organ  ranged 
over  all  levels,  from  the  diapason  organ-tone  to  the 
alto  shriek ;  from  the  fine  delicacies  of  pathetic  in- 


HENRY   CLAY.  39 

flections,  to  the  drum-beat  rolls  of  denunciatory 
intonations.  And  all  the  time  it  flowed  harmo- 
niously. Its  "  quality,"  as  elocutionists  would  say, 
was  delicious ;  and  its  modulations  proved  that  the 
human  voice  is  indeed  the  finest  and  most  impres- 
sive instrument  of  music  in  the  world ;  more  inspir- 
ing than  the  clamorous  chimings  of  Jullien  bands, 
more  touching  than  the  gentle  blowings  of  mellow 
flutes.  This,  his  great  possession,  the  unequalled 
voice,  as  well  as  all  the  other  eminent  particulars  of 
his  unrivalled  physique,  he  had  cultivated  with  assid- 
uous care,  from  his  youth  up.  "  Think  not,"  he  told 
the  students  of  the  Ballston  Law  School,  a  few 
years  before  his  death,  "think  not,  that  any  great 
excellence  of  advocacy  can  be  attained  without  great 
labor."  And  then,  in  his  most  happy  narrative  man- 
ner, he  went  on  to  tell  them  how  he  always  practised 
speaking  in  his  youth,  "  and  often  " ;  said  he,  "  I  made 
the  hills  resound  in  my  walks,  and  many  a  herd  of 
quietly-grazing  cows  has  been  the  astonished  audi- 
ence of  my  outpourings."  The  old  story  of  the 
great  Athenian  shutting  himself  in  his  cave,  for  five 
years,  by  patient  discipline  to  learn  to  wield  the 
orator's  whole  thunder,  is  indeed  paralleled  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  in  the  career  of  all  the  orators. 
It  was  this  uncommon  scope  and  flexibleness  of  his 
voice,  at  once  strong  and  delicate,  which,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  his  other  physical  endowments,  gave  him  the 
ability  of  satisfying  in  some  measure  in  his  delivery, 
that  ideal  of  Cicero,  where  he  enumerates  in  the 


40  CONGRESS. 

epistle  to  Brutus,  on  "  The  Orator,"  three  distinct 
kinds  of  speaking ;  the  neat,  the  moderate,  the 
mighty.  And  for  all  three  there  is  need,  each  in 
their  appropriate  place  ;  the  conversational,  the 
strong  but  not  passionate,  and  the  headlong  torrent- 
like  rush,  which  the  Greeks  called  agonizing,  upon 
the  Forum. 

Now,  having  thus  seen  what  were  Mr.  Clay's 
native  gifts,  let  us  see,  with  some  particularity,  how 
he  put  them  into  play,  —  his  manner  of  speaking. 
His  manner  in  delivery  was  eminently  natural, 
There  was  nothing  artificial  about  it  ;  nothing 
which  at  first  rather  shocked  you,  but  which,  when 
you  got  used  to  it,  pleased  you ;  as  was  the  case 
with  Mr.  Pinkney's  studied  and  splendid  harangues 
before  the  Supreme  Court.  It  was  natural,  easy, 
graceful,  and  dignified.  He  never  seemed,  as  some 
ranters  do,  to  be  blowing  himself  up.  He  never 
seemed  to  be  trying  to  do  anything.  It  was  all  as 
if  he  couldn't  help  it.  He  was  so  natural  and  ap- 
propriate in  delivery,  that,  in  his  wildest  outbursts, 
nobody  would  ever  think  of  crying  out  to  him,  as 
the  boy  in  the  crowd  bawled  to  the  fuming  spouter 
on  the  stage,  "  Sir,  your  face  is  so  red,  it  makes  me 
hot."  No,  if  Clay  was  furious,  you  felt  that  he 
ought  to  be  furious,  and  you  would  as  soon  find 
fault  with  a  caged  panther  for  howling  as  condemn 
him  for  his  outbreaks.  His  usual  delivery  was  quite 
deliberate ;  every  word  golden  and  clean-cut.  His 
hands  played  all  ways  naturally ;  there  was  no  ges- 


HENRY   CLAY.  41 

•ture,  which  looked  as  if  he  had  thought  of  it  over 
night.  His  figure  inclined  pliantly  and  with  a  digni- 
fied and  courtly  emphasis ;  though,  in  the  moments 
of  vast  passion,  it  would  bend  almost  double,  and 
for  an  instant  play  up  and  down  like  the  walking- 
beam  of  a  North  River  steamboat.  His  eye  usually 
smiled  with  an  expression  of  inviting  good-humor ; 
alternating,  however,  with  an  expression,  at  times, 
like  a  jet  of  flame.  He  frequently  took  snuff,  and 
would  walk  some  distance,  while  speaking,  to  take 
a  pinch  from  some  friendly  Senator's  box.  Some- 
times he  held  in  his  hand  a  great  red  handkerchief 
(a  product  of  some  Kentucky  loom,  we  should 
think),  and  often  forgetting  to  put  it  in  his  pocket,  in 
his  rising  raptures,  that  red  bandanna  would  flourish 
about,  with  a  sort  of  jubilant  triumph  of  motion, 
breathing,  by  the  spirit  of  its  movement,  as  much 
confidence  into  his  followers  as  the  white  plume  of 
Henry  of  Navarre  inspired  in  his  soldiers ;  and  sug- 
gesting, by  the  success  which  always  followed  the 
aroused  ardors,  of  which  its  waving  was  the  evi- 
dence, no  violent  imagination  of  the  very  "  crimson 
wing  of  conquest "  itself.  And  as  he  warmed,  his 
words  came  faster  and  faster,  yet  still  articulated 
harmoniously ;  his  awkward  arms  began  to  sweep 
gracefully  in  wider  and  wider  sweeps  ;  the  prophetic 
expression  of  his  feelings  darted  across  his  features 
in  the  advance  of  his  words  ;  single  words  would  be 
blazed  out,  yet  still  the  general  level  of  the  utterance 
was  low  and  sweet ;  his  uncomely  face  beamed  with 
4* 


42  CONGRESS. 

animation,  and  his  homely  mouth  seemed  to  shrink 
and  curve  in  his  passion,  almost  to  a  Grecian  chis- 
elling. 

His  general  level  of  speech  was  conversational, 
like  animated  talk ;  something  like  what  the  great 
Irish  orator,  Grattan,  in  one  of  his  youthful  letters, 
described  Lord  Chatham's  to  have  been.  But  even 
while  upon  this  level,  so  silver-tongued  were  his 
tones,  so  easy  and  gliding  their  flow,  and  so  varied 
and  delicate  their  inflections,  that  he  held  his  audi- 
tors' attention  fascinated  and  unflagging.  When, 
then,  he  rose  above  that  subdued  level,  the  effect 
was  correspondingly  powerful ;  and  in  every  pitch  of 
the  scale,  that  glorious  voice  was  unbroken  ;  he  had 
never  injured  it  by  bad  usage,  he  had  never  roared  it 
into  gruffness,  nor  growled  it  into  hardness  and  an 
edgy  coarseness,  but  always  he  was  golden-mouthed, 
—  a  modern  Chrysostom,  in  that  point  at  least. 
There  are  many  distinguished  speakers  who  are 
never  extremely  interesting,  except  when  making  a 
point,  or  making  a  vehement  burst ;  but  all  really 
great  speakers  can  command  attention,  and  exhibit 
charms  on  their  general  level;  and  in  the  highest 
degree  Clay's  average  level  was  grateful  to  the 
hearer.  He  did  not,  like  some  quite  popular  de- 
claimers,  indulge  in  violent  contrasts  of  pitch ;  run- 
ning along,  for  instance,  for  ten  sentences  on  one 
level,  and  then  abruptly  changing  to  another  and 
remote  level ;  but  maintained  always  this  melodious 
general  level  of  spirited  conversation,  from  which, 


HENRY   CLAY.  43 

easily  and  gracefully  and  by  gradations,  he  rose 
and  fell.  Single  words  and  tones,  however,  he 
would  sometimes  give  with  great  variety  of  modu- 
lation ;  for  his  voice  was  not  only  full  and  wide- 
ranging,  but  it  was  under  the  most  exact  command  ; 
from  his  low  and  sweet  level  of  tone,  he  would 
sometimes  strike  instantly  a  tone  like  an  alarm-bell. 
We  remember  once  hearing  him  throw  off  the  simple 
words  "  railroad  speed  "  in  such  a  manner  that,  in 
an  instant,  he  made  the  whole  express  train,  under 
lightning  headway,  dash  across  our  mind.  He  had, 
too,  a  faculty  of  crowding,  as  by  some  hydrostatic 
pressure  of  oratory,  an  amazing  weight  of  expression 
on  to  the  backbone  of  a  single  word.  Sometimes 
mounting  from  his  easy  level,  on  one  word  alone,  he 
would  go  through  a  whole  pantomime  of  action  ; 
his  form  rises,  his  eye  burns,  his  look  strikes  awe, 
while  the  final  ejaculation  of  that  much-anticipated 
word  would  burn  it  into  the  very  fibre  of  the  brain, 
for  an  everlasting  memory.  In  boyhood,  we  heard 
him  thus  utter  the  word  "  crevasse  "  ;  we  didn't  even 
know  then  what  a  "  crevasse "  was,  but  it  was 
struck,  as  by  some  tremendous  die,  into  our  mind  ; 
and  has  been  there  ever  since,  the  type  and  syno- 
nyme  of  everything  appalling. 

Although,  as  we  have  said,  he  spoke  in  the  open 
air,  his  style  was  there  also  much  the  same  as  with 
chamber  audiences.  The  sustained  tumultuous 
frenzy  of  the  Irish  school  of  eloquence  he  was  never 
urged  on  to,  even  by  the  shoutings  of  the  thousands 


44  CONGRESS. 

in  the  open  air.  Even  there,  beneath  the  blue  sky, 
and  before  the  million,  it  was  as  unlike  as  possible 
to  the  rough  hill-side  stormings,  with  which  we  may 
imagine  O'Connell  used  to  meet  and  grapple  with 
his  monster-gatherings.  In  the  very  torrent,  tempest, 
and  whirlwind  of  his  oratory,  he  could  beget  the 
Shakespearian  temperance  which  could  give  it  smooth- 
ness and  beauty. 

His  management  of  his  body  was  very  manly, 
dignified,  and  graceful ;  whether  flinging  his  arms 
about  in  the  storm  of  passion,  or  pausing  in  his 
course  to  take  the  pinch  of  snuff,  so  indispensable, 
his  movement  was  fit  to  be  seen  by  a  theatric 
audience.  His  by-play,  as  he  went  along  in  his 
speech,  was  capital ;  and,  indeed,  his  whole  expres- 
sion, by  face,  form,  fingers,  and  arms,  added  so 
prodigiously  to  the  effect  of  what  he  was  saying, 
that  the  reporters  would  often  fling  down  their  pens 
in  despair,  declaring  "  He's  a  great  actor,  and  that's 
the  whole  of  it."  That,  however,  was  not  the  whole 
of  it,  by  a  good  deal ;  for  a  vast  moral  and  intel- 
lectual steam-power  was  behind  all  this  physical 
machinery;  and  when,  at  one  moment,  it  was  all 
brought  into  full  play,  the  effect  was  wondrous  ; 
then,  when  his  mind  was  full  of  broad  thoughts, 
when  his  soul  was  all  aglow  with  burning  senti- 
ments, when  his  bodily  sensibilities  were  all  up  and 
reacting  on  all  his  faculties,  the  rapid  throb  of  his 
pulse  beating  a  reveille  to  all  his  powers,  —  then, 
indeed,  for  one  moment,  you  might  fancy  that 


HENRY   CLAY.  45 

Cicero's  splendid  dream  was  realized ;  that,  in  the 
senate-house,  Roscius  was,  indeed,  in  action ;  that 
the  all-perfect  combination  of  the  statesman  and  the 
actor  was  standing  right  before  you.  In  those  mo- 
ments, the  genius  of  Clay  —  Harry  Clay,  as  those 
who  loved  him  fondly  called  him  —  wielded  an  im- 
peratorial  supremacy  over  the  subdued  spirit  of 
others ;  then,  like  Andrew  Jackson,  his  sole  rival 
in  the  single  point  of  powerful  character,  he  could 
say,  with  defiant  front,  "  By  the  Eternal,  it  shall  be 
so  !  "  and  no  man  dared  gainsay  him. 

There  are  many  anecdotes  told  of  the  wonderful 
ascendency  of  his  character,  when  expressed  in 
eloquence,  which  indicate  its  practical  effect,  —  in- 
stantaneous, lightning-like.  During  the  war  of 
words  between  President  Jackson  and  him,  as  the 
Chief  of  the  Opposition  in  the  Senate,  he  uttered 
a  sentence  which  never  was  reported,  but  which  is 
said  to  have  been  at  once  electric  and  picturesque. 
He  was  predicting  dangers  from  the  dictatorship  of 
the  old  hero,  — "  Yes,"  said  he,  waving  his  hand 
out  towards  the  Capitol  gardens,  "  Yes,  and  even  in 
these  sacred  grounds,  some  military  chieftain  with 
his  nodding  plume  shall  dart  his  satisfied  eye  upon 
his  troops."  The  tragic  intensity  of  the  "dart  his 
satisfied  eye "  was  so  true  to  nature,  the  Senators 
almost  saw  another  Cromwell  at  the  door,  counting 
his  files  with  gleaming  eye,  as  they  invested  the  in- 
violate Capitol.  One  anecdote  is  remembered  of  cir- 
cumstances which  took  place  many  years  since,  when 


46  CONGRESS. 

he  was  in  the  full  flush  of  his  as  yet  unbroken  hope, 
—  "  Hope  elevating  and  joy  brightening  his  crest." 
As  it  took  place  in  the  secret  session  of  the  Senate, 
it  has  never  been  generally  known.  It  happened  thus : 
A  Democratic  President  had  nominated  a  Virginia 
Democrat  as  Minister  near  the  court  of  St.  James. 
In  the  political  complexion  of  the  Senate,  it  was 
necessary,  in  order  to  secure  his  confirmation,  for  at 
least  one  Whig  vote  to  be  thrown  for  him.  For 
reasons  best  known  to  himself,  a  very  leading  Whig 
Senator  had  been  induced  to  intimate  that  he  would 
fill  that  otherwise  fatal  chasm.  Mr.  Clay  heard  of 
this  bargain  or  tacit  understanding  on  the  very 
morning  upon  which  the  question  was  to  come  up 
for  decision.  It  did  n't  take  him  long  to  make  ready 
for  that  debate.  Indeed,  his  oratoric  forces  were 
always  a  sort  of  flying-artillery.  Just  as  the  ques- 
tion was  about  to  be  put  to  the  Senate,  he  towered 
up  on  the  Whig  side  of  the  hall,  to  the  infinite  anx- 
iety of  the  Democratic  managers,  and  the  deadly 
heart-shaking  of  the  single  recusant,  the  lone-star 
Whig.  Quite  contrary  to  his  usual  custom,  he 
launched  forth  at  once  into  a  tornado  of  denun- 
ciation on  the  proposed  ambassador.  He  made  not 
the  faintest  allusion  to  the  understood  bargain ;  but 
he  reviewed  his  whole  political  career,  bringing  out 
into  the  boldest  relief  the  steadfast  animosity  to  the 
Whig  party  which  that  career  had  consistently  dis- 
played. Every  act  of  thorough-paced  anti- Whiggism 
he  dragged  forth,  and  painted  in  the  most  glowing 


HENRY   CLAY.  47 

colors.  When  he  thought  he  had  laid  a  foundation 
impregnable,  then,  and  not  till  then,  the  whirlwind 
broke  upon  the  head  of  the  hitherto  unsuspected 
victim.  Fiercely  he  glared  round  on  the  rows  of 
senators.  "  And  now,"  he  almost  screamed  out, 
"  and  now,  what  Whig'  would  vote  for  this  man  ? 
What  Whig  would  promise  to  vote  for  this  man  ? 
What  Whig,  having  promised,  would  dare  to  keep 
that  promise  ?  " 

As  the  fierce  hawk  in  the  heavens  surveys  from  the 
sky  his  quarry  far  below,  and  sweeps  towards  the 
victim,  in  broad  wheeling,  narrowing  momentarily 
till  with  one  fatal  plunge  he  strikes  the  death-blow, 
—  so  here  the  orator,  in  this  fierce  assault,  seemed  in 
these  three  tremendous  interrogations,  to  approach 
his  victim  with  three  narrowing  sweeps  of  his  great 
arm,  and  with  more  and  more  certain  indications  of 
his  appalling  manner,  till,  as  he  came  to  the  final, 
the  most  accusing  and  defying  question,  —  he  turned 
full  on  the  object  of  his  wrath.  An  instant  he 
paused ;  standing  directly  before  him,  with  lion 
look,  he  glared  into  his  very  eyes  ;  then,  with  all  his 
accumulated  concentration  of  power,  he  hurled  the 
last  thunder-bolt  sentence  upon  him,  as  if  he  would 
strike  death  to  his  heart. 

The  oratorical  cannonade  was  too  tremendous  to 
be  endured,  and  the  Senator,  leaving  his  chair, 
walked  round  behind  the  Vice-President's  desk ; 
where  the  Corinthian  pillars  and  ample  curtains, 
hiding  him  from  that  brandishing  arm  and  accusa- 


48  CONGRESS. 

torial  eye,  shrouded  him  as  in  some  tranquil  heaven, 
from  the  terrors  of  the  tempest.  It  is  needless  to 
add  that  no  "  Whig"  voted  that  day  for  that  man. 
The  nomination  was  rejected,  and  it  was  further 
whispered  about  at  the  time,  that  a  long  and  vio- 
lent fever  supervened  to  the  nominee,  upon  the  dis- 
appointment and  the  invective. 

As  we  said  at  the  outset,  Mr.  Clay  seems  to  us 
the  greatest  natural  orator  whom  we  have  ever  heard. 
And  we  think  him  moreover  the  first  orator,  upon 
the  whole,  for  native  powers,  that  our  country  has 
yet  produced,  at  any  stage  of  our  history.  We  shall 
doubtless  be  told,  as  John  Adams  indignantly  wrote 
to  Mr.  Wirt,  when  his  Life  of  Patrick  Henry  came 
out,  "  multi  heroes  ante  Agamemnon," — there  were 
many  heroes  before  Agamemnon.  Perhaps  there 
were,  but  we  don't  believe  it.  What  Patrick  Henry 
really  was,  we  cannot  tell.  Our  age  sees  him  only 
through  the  dazzling  haze,  which  the  sympathetic 
genius  of  Wirt  himself — with  a  great  reputation 
for  rhetorical  prowess  to  maintain  —  threw  around 
his  subject.  Wirt  was  then  a  young  man,  but  an 
old  orator;  and  for  an  orator  to  write  about  a  de- 
parted orator,  and  not  apotheosize  him,  the  muse 
of  eloquence  would  have  walked  him  right  out  of 
her  train.  As  for  James  Otis,  he  is  a  sort  of  bright 
myth.  To  be  sure,  as  he  argued  the  famous  "  Writs 
of  Assistance  "  in  the  old  State-house  in  Boston, 
Adams  felt  that  "that  day  the  child  Independence 
was  born,"  but  with  what  agonies  of  eloquence  the 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  49 

parturition  was  achieved,  we  really  know  as  little 
accurately,  as  we  know  how  Otis  himself  felt,  when 
the  lightning  struck  him  dead,  as  he  walked,  on  that 
fatal  summer's  day. 

Indeed,  therefore,  we  must  place  Henry  Clay  first 
on  the  American  Forum.  And  if  a  Ciceronian  cul- 
ture had  fallen  to  his  lot,  we  think  that  here,  among 
us,  the  scenes  of  Athens  and  of  Pericles  might  pos- 
sibly have  been  repeated,  and  the  "  Lost  Art "  of 
Oratory  might  have  rolled  back  upon  us,  like  recol- 
lected music.  Would  it  had  been  so !  For  even 
now,  we  might  be  placing,  in  our  Pantheon  of  the 
unforgotten  men  of  the  Republic,  a  statue  worthy  to 
stand  by  the  side  of  the  great  twin  brethren  of  elo- 
quence,—  the  pride  of  the  Grecian  Berna,  and  the 
ornament  of  the  Roman  Forum. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER. 

There  never  was  an  orator  in  America,  in  whose 
oratory  personal  appearance  was  so  large  an  element 
of  success,  as  it  was  in  the  speaking  of  Daniel  Web- 
ster. Wherever  his  volumes  of  speeches  go,  there 
his  statue  and  his  portrait  ought  to  go.  In  his  face 
and  form,  taken  together,  he  was  doubtless  the  most 
impressive  figure  of  America,  if  not  of  modern 
times.  Shakespeare's  brow  and  Goethe's  head  are 
celebrated  for  their  intellectual  beauty,  but  his  was 
grander  than  either.  It  might  better  have  been  said 
of  him  than  of  Chancellor  Thurlow,  that  "  He  must 
5 


50  CONGRESS. 

be  an  impostor,  for  no  man  could  be  so  great  as  he 
looked."  If  Milton  could  have  seen  him,  he  might 
have  added  touches  to  his  picture  of  the  awful  chief 
of  the  infernal  conclave,  in  its  dread  debates  after 
the  loss  of  Paradise. 

"Sage  he  stood,  with  Atlantean  shoulders, 
Fit  to  bear  the  weight  of  mightiest  monarchies. 
His  look  drew  audience  and  attention,  still  as  night, 
Or  summer's  noontide  air,  while  he  then  spoke." 

We  have  seen  many  of  the  first  orators,  and  the 
first  men,  of  Europe  and  America;  the  debaters 
and  rulers  of  England,  the  soldiers  and  statesmen 
of  France,  —  Brougham,  Peel,  O'Connell,  Welling- 
ton, Marshal  Soult,  King  Louis  Philippe,  Minis- 
ters Guizot  and  Thiers,  and  that  proud  and  hand- 
some Duke  of  Orleans,  whose  untimely  death  beg- 
gared his  dynasty;  but  never  have  we  seen,  nor 
upon  this  earth  do  we  expect  to  see,  such  another 
embodiment  of  intellectual  majesty  as  Daniel  Web- 
ster. The  intellectual  beauty  of  Napoleon  as  First 
Consul,  the  uncomely  but  commanding  look  of  Julius 
Caesar  as  Emperor,  the  leonine  nose  and  dignified 
aspect  of  Washington,  the  lines  of  thought  twisted 
in  Tully's  sadly  interesting  face,  the  stony,  crushed 
features  of  Socrates,  the  noble  port  of  Plato,  the  high- 
bred lordliness  of  Bolingbroke,  —  search  them  all 
over ;  and  if  mankind  had  assembled  to  choose  them 
the  king,  whom  Nature  had  crowned,  to  him,  in  the 
instant  judgment  of  the  nineteenth  century  certainly, 
would  her  finger  unerringly  point.  He  never  gained 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  51 

the  Presidency,  but  with  one  consent  his  country- 
men christened  him  —  Webster,  the  God-like. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  speak  of  his  characteristics 
of  countenance  and  person  in  detail.  No  canvas 
has  ever  done  justice  to  them,  and  words  cannot. 
That  rich  complexion,  so  dark,  yet  so  bright  when  he 
was  animated,  —  the  Batchelder  blood  of  his  mother, 
Indian  in  hue,  tinging  the  Saxon  blonde  of  the 
Websters ;  those  sad  eyes,  so  black,  so  reposeful,  so 
sovereign,  —  not  large,  but  looking  large,  from  the 
cavernous  sockets  in  which  they  were  sunk ;  that 
broad  face,  every  feature  and  lineament  of  which 
had  its  own  power  and  beauty ;  those  lips  of  chis- 
elled iron,  closing  so  hard  on  teeth  as  regular  as  art 
and  whiter  than  ivory,  parting  with  a  smile  which 
darted  sunshine  from  a  thunder-cloud;  that  head, 
which  Thorwaldsen  thought  was  nobler  than  any 
European  or  even  antique  head,  and  whose  cast,  now, 
astonishes  the  artist  world  of  Italy ;  that  bust,  whose 
marble  counterfeit  in  the  studio  of  the  sculptor, 
Powers,  was  actually  mistaken  by  the  artists  for  an 
ideal  of  Olympian  Jove ;  and,  beetling  over  all,  the 
capacious  dome  of  that  vast  brow,  which  has  be- 
come a  national  ideal  of  personal  grandeur,  and 
first  created  the  epithet  "  Websterian  "  ;  —  these,  all 
combined  with  his  build  of  body,  —  blending  the 
Herculean  with  a  statelier  grace,  —  to  encompass 
that  grand  mortal,  with  his  own  majesty. 

His  head,  his  bust,  his  statue,  his  portrait,  his 
medallion,  have  been  multiplied  for  every  city  and 


52  CONGRESS. 

almost  for  every  house,  in  America.  In  every  man's 
family  they  can  see  him  as  he  really  was ;  for  his 
personal  appearance  was  in  no  degree  due  to  con- 
ventionality. Careful  and  decorous  as  he  was  in 
dress  on  important  occasions,  he  would  have  looked 
superior,  without  any  mark  even  of  social  standing ; 
for,  the  escutcheon  of  his  greatness  was  blazoned  all 
over  him,  in  every  attitude,  in  every  look,  in  every 
tone.  Louis  the  Magnificent,  the  creator  of  Ver- 
sailles, never  thought  himself  "the  Great"  till  he 
was  costumed,  and  got  up  for  the  day,  to  be  shown 
to  his  people.  But  Webster,  in  his  slouched  hat 
and  Marshfield  farmer's  clothes,  stood  beneath  his 
branching  elm  "  The  God-like  Daniel,"  still.  No 
mere  circumstances  could  unclothe  him  of  his  roy- 
alty, or  uncrown  the  brow,  which  Nature  had  so 
prodigally  laurelled. 

His  expression,  when  not  aroused  and  in  full  play, 
was  cloudy  and  grave.  He  had  the  sad  look  of  the 
men,  who  have  conquered  and  seen  through  the 
world; — "  Constituit,  rexit,  luget."  During  all  his 
life,  great  cares  sat  heavy  on  him  ;  and  their  thoughts, 
and  this  solemnity,  hung  over  him  a  pall  of  mournful 
austerity. 

The  men  of  old  said,  "  Speech  is  silver,  but  silence 
is  gold."  Some  men's  silence  is  more  mighty  than 
other  men's  speech.  When  the  great  actor  whom 
Buonaparte  loved,  Talma,  came  down  the  stage,  in 
"  Sylla,"  in  profound  silence,  although  he  spoke  not 
nor  gestured,  yet,  by  the  mystery  of  his  genius 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  53 

speaking  only  in  his  attitude  and  in  his  eye,  —  he 
awed  the  house.  Upon  the  morning  when  Webster 
was  to  answer  Hayne,  in  the  Senate,  there  were 
many  men  of  New  England  who  desponded.  So 
preconcerted  and  so  concentrated  had  been  that 
attack  upon  her,  which  had  now  culminated  in 
Hayne's  speech,  they  feared  New  England  could 
never  be  herself  again.  Those  who  had  crowded 
into  the  gallery  of  the  Senate  held  their  breath,  as  the 
floor  was  given  to  her  Champion.  Many  of  them 
have  since  put  on  record  their  successive  emotions, 
then.  He  rose  slowly  and  heavily,  but  they  say  that, 
as  he  gained  his  feet  and  stood  firm,  confronting 
his  opponent,  a  light  shot  into  his  dark  face  ;  the 
gloomy  fire  of  his  glance  flashed  up,  his  massive 
form  dilated  and  towered,  till  his  ample  brow  seemed 
rounded  with  the  diadem  of  sovereignty ;  so  pan- 
oplied in  Nature's  majesty  he  stood,  —  his  first  word 
was  a  triumph.  After  that  first  word,  after  that  first 
sight,  no  one  of  the  New  Englanders  doubted  the 
issue.  And  we  may  well  imagine  that  it  was  so. 
That  was  the  hour  for  Webster,  and  Webster  was  the 
orator  for  that  hour.  There  are  hours  in  which  the 
handwriting  on  the  wall  foretells  the  "  manifest  des- 
tiny," as  well  as  the  impending  doom  of  nations ; 
and  for  every  one  of  them,  God  sends  the  prophet. 

It  is  happy  for  posterity,  that  the  statue  of  this 

great  orator  is  destined  to  stand,  in  the  busiest  streets 

of  his  adopted  city.     If  it  shall  catch  his  true  ora- 

toric  pose,  as  he  used  to  pause,  full  charged  with 

5* 


54  CONGRESS. 

thought  but  not  yet  speaking, —  speechless  but  elo- 
quent, "  On  that  broad  brow,  sitting  hushed  thun- 
ders "  ;  when  he  stood  still  and  waited  for  the 
tumults  of  applause  to  hush,  —  if  it  is  the  true  man 
and  no  counterfeit,  it  will  stand  a  statue  to  com- 
mand the  world. 

In  addition  to  all  these  native  advantages,  he  had, 
during  the  last  forty  years  of  his  life,  the  prodigious 
advantage  for  oratory,  of  his  reputation.  Great 
actors  say,  that  one  difficulty  which  protracts  their 
necessary  apprenticeship  so  long  is,  that  they  dare 
not  let  themselves  out,  in  action.  They  dare  not 
abandon  themselves  to  their  impulse.  The  audi- 
ence is  not  prepared  for  anything  extraordinary  in 
them,  until  they  have  somehow  achieved  a  reputa- 
tion. When  that  is  gained,  then,  they  feel  encour- 
aged to  outstrip  themselves  ;  and  their  audience 
exaggerates  every  excellence.  Talma  was  obscure, 
till  he  got  a  chance  to  play  a  severely  classical  char- 
acter. He  edged  his  Roman  toga  with  the  deep 
clavicle,  and  spoke  in  the  simplest  attire  and  in  the 
severest  manner.  The  novelty  struck  the  French 
audience.  The  name  of  Talma  was  for  the  first 
time  talked  about.  Eyes  began  to  be  turned  to 
him  with  some  expectancy.  He  had  gained  the 
threshhold  of  his  greatness.  Can  it  be  doubted 
that  Ristori,  —  the  Italian  tragedienne,  who  now  de- 
lights England  and  even  threatens  Rachel's  sceptre, 
—  can  it  be  doubted  that  she,  although  undiscovered 
by  the  great  world,  has  yet  been  for  many  years 


DANIEL  WEBSTEE.  55 

really,  in  secret,  the  glorious  embodiment  of  passion, 
which  she  now  is  acknowledged  to  be?  In  our 
country,  the  benefit  of  reputation  to  a  truly  great 
orator,  who  scorns  to  mouth,  and  "  play  Hercles  "  to 
the  ignorant,  is  immense.  We  are  a  successful,  but 
not  as  yet  a  cultivated  people,  and  anything  which 
touches  the  domain  of  the  fine  arts  we  take  much 
upon  trust.  Our  people,  though  keenly  alive  to 
oratory,  are  not  sufficiently  artistic  to  test  oratory 
solely  on  its  merits.  If  a  great  reputation  speaks, 
every  sentence  falls  with  a  "  thus  saith  the  Lord " 
emphasis ;  and  wise  men  will  laud,  and  grave  men 
listen ;  when,  if  the  speaker  was  as  yet  a  nobody, 
they  would  only  "  pooh,  pooh,"  him  off  the  stage. 

We  never  saw  Webster,  the  orator,  before  he 
enjoyed  this  elevating  charm.  To  our  youthful 
and  maturer  apprehension,  he  was  always  the  his- 
toric man.  A  niche  in  the  world's  Pantheon  had 
been  already  carved  for  him.  He  was,  the  Man  of 
Victory.  In  forensic  battles,  upon  whose  issues  had 
hung  destinies,  as  momentous  as  upon  the  battles 
of  Alexander,  Victory  and  Glory  had  come  and  sat 
down  by  him.  Into  many  languages,  his  Speeches 
had  been  translated.  They  had  entered  into  the  per- 
manent thoughts  of  the  world ;  and  his  vast  renown 
had  travelled  round  the  orb  of  the  civilized  earth. 
In  his  own  person  he  was  a  Column  of  victory. 

Webster  was,  emphatically,  the  orator  of  the  un- 
derstanding. The  hold  that  Henry  Clay  had  upon 
the  heart  of  his  countrymen,  Webster  had  upon  the 


56 .  CONGRESS. 

American  mind.  Energetic  intellect,  rigorously  rea- 
soning, close  grappling,  and  hard  hitting,  charac- 
terized all  he  said.  This  was  his  chief  development. 
Around  this,  all  his  other  qualities  centred ;  and  no 
man,  since  Alexander  Hamilton,  has  so  powerfully 
addressed  the  understanding,  on  the  great  political 
subjects  of  his  day.  No  politician  has  so  powerfully 
interested  the  universal  mind  of  the  country.  The 
rough,  strong,  uncultivated  thinkers,  who  abound  in 
our  atmosphere  of  pure  discussion,  and  the  trained 
and  accomplished  reasoners  of  the  most  educated 
classes,  bowed,  habitually,  to  the  weight  and  strength 
of  his  thoughts. 

These  faculties  of  the  understanding,  developed  by 
an  admirable  training  in  the  law  and  in  politics, 
enabled  him  to  shine  and  rule  at  the  Bar,  from  the 
hour  of  his  admission  to  the  rank  of  counsellor. 
And  that  was  a  day  when  athletic  force  of  mind 
abounded  in  the  courts.  It  was  the  day  of  Theoph- 
ilus  Parsons,  and  Jeremiah  Mason,  and  Samuel 
Dexter,  and  Judge  Parker,  —  men,  whose  legal  gladia- 
torship  demanded  for  its  struggles,  energies  of  mind 
and  character  sufficient,  in  walks  more  popular  than 
law,  to  make  their  permanent  marks  upon  an  age. 
It  was  the  day  of  very  high  professional  standards. 
No  attorney  was  even  allowed  to  practise,  in  the 
Supreme  Court,  until  he  had  sustained  a  long  proba- 
tionary service  in  the  other  courts ;  and  thus,  had 
won  his  spurs  by  patient  and  improving  toils.  Even 
Rufus  Choate  was  prevented  from  actively  appear- 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  57 

ing,  in  the  Knapp  case,  because  he  had  not  finished 
this  length  of  probation.  He  was  condemned  to  a 
silent  and  advising  post,  in  the  rival  ranks  of  that 
tremendous  professional  tourney.  Special  pleading, 
a  science  in  itself,  a  science  almost  as  rigorous  and 
close  in  its  movements  as  the  pure  mathematics,  had 
not  been  abolished;  and  we  remember,  many  years 
after,  how  indignantly  in  a  conversation,  Mr.  Web- 
ster condemned  the  modern  Massachusetts  plan  of 
pleading,  —  a  plan,  which  substituted  general  state- 
ments and  great  latitude  of  proofs,  for  the  precise 
singleness  of  issue  and  severe  accuracy  of  proof, 
necessitated  by  the  Common  Law.  The  student  of 
law  then  had  no  "  helps  to  read,"  no  treatises,  few 
text-books.  He  must  puzzle  things  out  in  the  musty 
and  crooked  Reports,  going  back  beyond  the  Year- 
Books.  As  an  example  of  this,  Mr.  Webster  related 
that,  among  other  studies,  he  translated  and  briefed 
out,  pen  in  hand,  the  pleadings  in  Sergeant  Hill's 
Saunders's  Reports,  in  the  old  folio  Latin.  In  such  a 
style  and  age  of  legal  practice  it  was,  that  Webster 
stood  in  the  front  ranks,  and  trained  up  his  mind  by 
the  sharpest  labors  and  most  fiery  controversies.  To 
the  grapple  of  Jeremiah  Mason's  rivalry,  he  always 
professed  himself  most  indebted,  of  all  his  early  in- 
fluences in  court,  for  the  shaping  and  condensation 
of  his  intellect.  In  after  life,  when  the  Lawyer  be- 
came the  Senator,  and  buckled  down  his  disciplined 
faculties  to  questions  and  issues  affecting  national- 
ities, he  applied  his  force  with  such  an  almost  sav- 


58  CONGRESS. 

age  closeness,  that  his  physical  features  revealed  the 
traces  of  his  mighty  mental  struggle.  For,  after  a 
day  of  toil,  exclusively  upon  some  theme  of  great 
concern,  his  swarthy  countenance  grew  darker,  and 
more  deeply  tinged  with  the  sallow  hues  of  his 
bilious  constitution.  Rembrandt  might  then  have 
painted  him,  in  the  boldest  light  and  shadow. 

The  intellectual  power  with  which  he  could  put 
his  mind  down  upon  great  tasks,  and  the  unflagging 
mental  energy  with  which  he  ploughed  through  its 
most  arduous  labor,  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that, 
when  Secretary  of  State,  he  wrote  in  one  morning 
the  well-known  Letter  about  the  Spanish  negroes, 
which  settled  a  very  important  State  question.  He 
commenced  the  letter  before  breakfast,  and  ended  it 
before  dinner.  As  a  result  of  this  sinewy  mental 
muscle,  which  he  could  bring  into  play,  it  naturally 
followed  that  when  he  had  been  through  a  subject 
once,  he  had  done  with  it  for  ever,  and  it  was  all  clear 
as  day,  in  his  mind.  There  was  no  confusion  of 
particulars  or  of  application.  He  bent  his  mind 
upon  a  confused  conglomeration  of  ideas,  and  it  re- 
solved itself  and  became  palpable ;  as  the  nebulous 
cloud,  under  the  glass  of  the  Tuscan  artist  breaks 
into  stars,  each  sparkling  distinctly  in  the  telescopic 
eye.  His  oratory,  therefore,  is  always  strong  and 
clear.  The  current  is  strong  but  the  stream  is  clear. 
What  he  treats  of,  no  man  can  doubt  about.  He 
might  be  contradicted,  but  he  was  always  fully 
understood.  Doubtful  subjects,  which  had  become 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  59 

loaded  and  embarrassed   by  political  chicanery,  or 
by  the  dust  of  time,  he  seized  with  a  giant  grasp, 
cleared  them  from  encumbrance,  and  held  them  up 
to  the  hearer  as  simple  as  an  elementary  proposition. 
Subjects  dark  and  cloudy  in  themselves,  he  held  so 
firmly  in  his  own  view,  when  he  studied  them,  that 
if  it  were  possible  to  any  man,  he  saw  through  them 
and  he  saw  the  whole  of  them ;  and  when  he  saw 
through  anything,  he  speedily  made  everybody  else 
see  through  it.     For  clear  thought  is  the  parent  of 
clear  talk,  as  verbal   diffuseness    and  looseness   of 
style  is  the  result  of  uncertainty  of  ideas.     Knowing 
therefore  exactly  what  he  wanted  to  say,  he  illumi- 
nated the  gloom  of  a  confused  and  overshadowed 
theme  with  the  blaze  of  a  Drummond  light.      Into 
the  lurking-places  of  sophistry,  he  poured  a  clear  day- 
light.    His  statement  of  a  case  was  really  his  argu- 
ment upon  it ;  and  in  enforcing  the   statement,  his 
logic  was  so  remorseless,  that,  as  was  said  of  a  living 
New  England  divine,  it  required  more  effort  not  to 
follow  him   than  it  did  to  follow  most  men's   rea- 
sonings.    It  was  by  no  intuitive  faculty  that  he  con- 
quered his  theme,  catching  at  the  right  conclusions 
with  Clay's  eagle-eyed  impetuosity,  but  he  conquered 
it  by  sheer  power  Of  intellectual  vision  and  disentan- 
glement.    He  viewed  everything  he  studied  from  a 
central  station  ;  never,  under  accidental  angles.     He 
commanded  its  entire  circumference,  as  a  general 
surveys  from  a  tower  the  whole  plane  of  his  battle. 
If  it  was  a  great  theme,  he  held  it  longer  and  more 


60  CONGRESS. 

steadily  before  his  eyes,  going  about  it  and  over  it 
till  he  knew  it;  and  then,  in  presenting  it  to  the 
hearer,  it  would  be  fused  in  his  mind  with  the  blast 
of  a  sensibility  kindling  only  with  the  highest  oc- 
casions,—  like  anthracite  coal,  it  burns  only  under 
the  fiercest  blast,  but  burns  up  even  iron. 

That  most  perplexing  subject  of  national  discord, 
the  asserted  right  to  search  for  seamen  on  the  deck 
beneath  our  flag,  which  long  threatened  the  sta- 
bility of  pacific  relations  between  America  and  Eng- 
land, he  settled,  by  simply  seeing  clear  through  it. 
He  made  it  so  plain  and  clear  to  England,  that  she 
was  forced  to  abandon  the  fallacy  of  her  assump- 
tions from  sheer  self-respect.  The  tangled  mass,  his 
mighty  mind  absolutely  dissolved  and  dissipated. 

It  has  been  critically  said,  that  a  good  newspaper 
editor  is  shown  more  by  what  he  keeps  out  of  his 
paper  than  by  what  he  puts  in.  So  Webster  showed 
his  power,  by  the  grand  simplicity  to  which  he  re- 
duced his  speeches  ;  the  false  ornament,  the  popular 
but  fallacious  reasonings  of  the  day,  the  rhodomon- 
tade  of  American  exaggeration,  —  the  absence  of  all 
this,.the  simplicity  of  his  greatness,  tests  his  great- 
ness. But  this  very  superiority  of  his  mind,  often 
belittled  his  oratoric  effect.  For' clearness  and  sim- 
plicity are  never  so  taking  as  a  glittering  confusion 
of  ideas,  —  "the  gay  deliriums  of  thought."  When 
he  had  laid  out  in  a  speech  the  fixed  proportions  of 
some  subject,  which  he  had  established  by  deep  ex- 
cogitation, and  upon  which  nobody  else  had  gained 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  61 

accurate  and  defined  views,  it  all  seemed  so  obvious 
that  nobody  wondered  or  admired.  But  the  men, 
who  perhaps  for  years  had  sputtered  "  about  it  and 
about  it,"  and  thrown  off  trivial  though  sparkling 
generalities,  alone  perceived  thoroughly  the  immense 
force  which  must  have  wrestled  with  the  difficulties 
which  had  so  utterly  baffled  them.  In  truth,  to 
appreciate  Webster's  mind,  requires  some  self-disci- 
pline and  much  mental  experience.  As  the  summit 
peak  of  a  chain  cannot  be  seen  but  by  climbing 
the  lower  spurs  and  hills,  so  one  must  climb  himself, 
to  see  the  dimensions  and  the  grandeur  of  this  ele- 
vated intellectuality.  The  admirable  arrangement, 
the  precision  of  thought,  and  the  absolute  truth,  to 
which  his  thinking  conducted  him  in  his  speeches, 
were  all  decisive  indications  of  his  supremacy  of  in- 
tellect. But,  to  the  unthinking  auditor,  the  general 
play  of  his  power  was  not  so  impressive,  as  the  gal- 
vanic struggles  of  a  shallow  yet  vivid  mind.  The 
greatest  forces  of  the  earth  all  act  noiselessly  but 
irresistibly.  Nightly  the  scenery  of  the  sky  is  shifted 
by  celestial  hands,  and  daily  the  great  globe  of  sun- 
light wheels  round  its  gorgeous  circuits,  without 
jar  or  noise.  So  with  the  highest  operations  of  the 
greatest  minds.  Their  play  and  performance  are 
in  forms  and  shapes  which,  unless  they  are  care- 
fully studied,  do  not  fascinate  or  amaze  the  be- 
holder. There  is  some  danger  then  that  the  capaci- 
ty and  sheer  power  of  mind,  which  stand  revealed 
in  Webster's  speeches,  may  not  challenge  as  it 
6 


62  CONGRESS. 

ought,  the  most  intelligent  and  universal  recognition 
of  men. 

We  speak  of  his  mind  as  it  was  at  its  meridian, 
not  in  its  earliest  stages  of  growth;  for  it  was 
eminently  a  growing  mind,  for  forty  years.  It  ma- 
tured slowly.  Indeed,  so  slowly  that  he  himself 
never  fully  realized  his  own  ability  till  late  in  life. 
In  his  earliest  letters,  he  declared  that  his  whole  am- 
bition was,  to  get  a  comfortable  living  by  his  practice  ; 
and  he  doubted,  he  said,  if  his  ability  could  accom- 
plish more.  We  once  heard  an  eminent  friend  of 
his  say,  that,  in  his  own  estimation  of  himself,  he 
was  always  "  about  a  dozen  years  too  late."  He 
never  found  out,  till  very  late  in  life,  said  he,  that  he 
could  be  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  mean- 
time he  had  hit  right  and  left  and  made  enemies. 
When  he  met  Pinkney  in  legal  conflict  at  Wash- 
ington, neither  he  nor  anybody  else  considered 
him  intellectually  Pinkney's  rival.  It  is  an  inter- 
esting physiological  fact,,  that,  when  he  was  ad- 
vancing to  his  prime,  his  size  of  hats  had  to  be 
enlarged  from  year  to  year  for  several  years. 

But  when  his  mind  had  been  long  in  legal  train- 
ing, when  it  had  handled  the  most  serious  in- 
terests of  social  man,  when  he  had  gained  self- 
confidence  by  exertions,  which  without  doubt  had 
astonished  himself  as  much  as  the  world,  then  it 
grew  to  be,  in  its  own  range  of  studies,  the  first  mind 
on  the  continent.  Then,  it  proved  to  be  great  in 
itself ;  a  mind  whose  very  frame-work  and  constitu- 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  63 

tion  was  great.  Some  men  are  great  by  the  pro- 
ducts of  their  minds,  by  the  work  they  make  their 
faculties  do.  Like  the  worm,  which,  neither  strong 
nor  beautiful  itself,  spins  from  the  labyrinths  of  its 
hidden  resources  the  firm  and  fine  silk  which  ranks 
with  princes'  ornaments,  and  thus  surrounds  itself 
with  splendor,  so  these  men  are  great  by  the  tremen- 
dous energies  they  put  in  play ;  whose  action  creates 
an  intellectual  capital  for  them  which  is  always  as 
it  were  at  interest.  They  are  great  by  the  splendid 
images  which  they  have  taught  habitually  to  visit 
their  thoughts,  by  the  heroic  remembrances  which 
rise  from  their  labored  studies,  by  the  sustained  ten- 
sion to  which  they  spur  their  laggard  faculties ;  but 
with  Webster,  the  essential  fibre  and  frame  of  the 
mind  was  great.  His  marvellous  memory  indicated 
the  closeness  and  tenacity  with  which  he  took  hold 
of  his  subject.  We  heard  him  relate  an  anecdote  of 
his  early  practice,  which  showed  this  power  in  a 
wonderful  degree.  In  his  early  business  a  Will  was 
brought  to  him  for  an  opinion.  He  read  it  carefully, 
but  saw  no  vice  or  omission  in  it.  But  as  he  was 
informed  that  Jeremiah  Mason  had  given  an  opinion 
adverse  to  it,  he  told  his  client  to  come  again  in  a 
week.  Meantime  he  studied  over  the  Will.  Every 
morning  and  every  night  he  read  it,  but  saw  no  fault. 
At  the  end  of  the  week  the  client  came.  Webster 
told  him  he  had  been  so  pressed  with  business  he 
had  not  been  able  to  examine  it  sufficiently,  and 
took  another  week.  The  second  week  of  daily 


64  CONGRESS. 

study  on  the  Will  drew  to  a  close,  and  still  he  could 
not  see  the  point.  The  night  before  the  end  of  the 
week  he  was  hopelessly  pondering  over  it,  when 
suddenly,  as  by  an  illuminating  ray,  the  point  flashed 
out  before  him.  He  followed  it  up.  He  soon  saw 
that  the  validity  turned  on,  whether  a  certain  limita- 
tion in  the  will  was  an  executory  devise  or  a  con- 
tingent remainder.  He  mastered  the  point,  and 
when  the  client  came  next  day,  he  was  ready  with 
his  opinion.  Twenty  years  after,  he  was  trying  a 
case  in  New  York,  when  the  same  point  under  pre- 
cisely the  same  aspect  came  up.  Webster  mean- 
time had  never  had  occasion  to  re-examine  it ;  but 
he  instantly  rose,  recalled  all  the  leading  authorities, 
and  made  a  conclusive  and  elaborate  technical  argu- 
ment upon  it,  as  fresh  and  correct  as  if  the  twenty 
years  intervening  since  he  first  looked  up  the  point, 
were  suddenly  annihilated.  As  may  well  be  im- 
agined, he  took  the  whole  court,  judge  and  counsel, 
by  surprise  and  by  storm. 

Probably  no  man  ever  heard  or  read  a  leading 
speech  of  Webster's,  without  being  impressed  with 
the  tone  of  majestic  grandeur  with  which  it  seemed 
to  resound.  This  was  partly  the  effect  of  his  un- 
equalled physical  presence  and  his  nobly  deep  voice  ; 
but  it  was  also  due  to  the  elevated  range  of  his 
ideas.  Great  sentiments  were  constantly  thrown  in, 
the  sentiments  spontaneously  natural  to  minds  of 
the  first  order;  sentiments  which  scorn  every  little 
trick  of  debate,  and  which  appeal  to  the  most  lordly 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  65 

impulses  which  lurk  in  human  nature.  He  had  a 
vehement  and  imperious  scorn  of  the  little  topics  of 
crafty  debate.  Universal  truths,  infinitely  more  im- 
portant than  the  text  of  the  particular  speech,  often 
appear  in,  and  enforce,  the  logic  which  drives  on  to 
its  special  points.  To  the  immutable  test  of  truth, 
he  brought  his  theories,  his  facts,  and  his  words. 
And  this  elevation  and  comprehensiveness  of  mind, 
this  dealing  with  the  universal  and  the  immortal,  it 
was,  which  gave  him  that  appearance  of  being  him- 
self more  grand,  and  more  puissant  than  his  periods  ; 
as  though  an  unsounded  depth  of  reserved  power 
awaited  his  final  demand  at  the  springs  of  his  intel- 
lectual reservoirs ;  or,  as  though  his  advance-guard 
only  was  in  action,  but  the  reserves  were  ready  at 
hand.  Everett  seems  to  spend  himself  upon  his 
periods :  Webster  stands  behind  his  periods.  Henry 
Clay  had,  to  a  degree,  this  appearance  of  being 
greater  than  his  words,  the  warrior  mightier  than 
the  blow  of  his  battle-axe ;  but  it  was  because  his 
loftiness  of  character  spoke  itself  out  so  daring, 
and  so  powerful.  But  in  Webster  this  appearance 
was  due  to  the  essential  grandeurs  of  his  brain.  It 
was  "  Strength,  half  leaning  on  its  own  right  arm." 

Rufus  Choate,  in  his  "  Lecture  on  Oratory,"  de- 
clared that  Webster  never  was  fully  roused.  To  do 
so,  would  have  required  the  lashings  of  an  occasion 
more  terrible  than  any  to  which  he  was  ever  actually 
subjected,  —  a  revolution  rocking  a  political  system 
resting  on  the  rocks  of  many  ages,  or  one  involving 
6* 


66  CONGRESS. 

the  present  fates  of  millions  of  men,  in  a  new-born 
but  most  promising  nationality.  Splendid  as  were 
his  occasions  of  oratory,  and  he  was  counted  very 
fortunate  in  them,  he  never  felt  the  torment  of  a 
stimulus  like  this. 

Yet,  wide-reaching  and  high  as  he  was  in  his 
thoughts,  nevertheless  he  seerns  to  us,  rather  the 
advocate  than  the  philosopher  in  Politics  and  Law. 
He  pleads  "  a  cause  "  ever,  not  abstract,  pure  truth. 
Truths  immutable  he  does  indeed,  as  has  been  said, 
present ;  but  they  are  rallied  to  support  some  expedi- 
ency, some  issue  "joined";  and  they  are  so  linked 
with  that  "  issue  "  that  they  cannot  often  be  disen- 
tangled from  it,  so  as  to  become  of  permanent,  uni- 
versal application  and  interest.  The  general  truths 
he  offers  are  marshalled  with  a  lawyer's  sagacity  and 
severity  ;  but  they  bear  so  clearly  on  the  question  of 
the  hour,  that  with  the  passing  away  of  the  issue 
passes  away  their  interest. 

Clearly  his  domain  was  the  practical,  not  the  phil- 
osophical or  the  beautiful.  He  never  could  have 
written  at  the  age  of  thirty,  as  Edmund  Burke  did, 
nor  at  any  age,  a  rich  and  truthful  treatise  on  "  The 
Sublime  and  Beautiful."  It  was  his  to  manage 
facts  not  theories,  reasons  not  intuitions,  logic  not 
mere  sentiments.  It  was  his  to  prove  like  a  lawyer, 
not  to  dogmatize  like  a  pure  orator.  Murray,  Lord 
Mansfield,  explained  and  reasoned  the  House  of 
Lords  into  convictions.  Chatham  thundered  and 
declared^  and  the  House  believed  him. 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  67 

Webster's  tastes  pointed  to  his  talents ;  they  ran 
to  the  natural,  real  sciences,  not  to  the  metaphysical 
or  speculative.  Natural  history  and  tangible  phe- 
nomena engaged  him.  Lord  Bacon  wrote,  that  he 
"  had  taken  all  learning  for  his  province  " ;  all  the 
kingdoms  of  nature  were  Webster's  province.  At 
St.  Helena,  Napoleon  said  that,  had  he  escaped  to 
America,  after  Waterloo,  he  should  have  employed 
some  scientific  persons  to  complete  a  full  view  of  the 
advances  made  in  natural  sciences.  From  that  view, 
as  a  basis,  he  should  have  occupied  his  mind  in 
grand  investigations.  With  the  same  taste,  Webster 
actually  did  employ  a  geologist,  to  arrange  the  speci- 
mens of  geological  strata  in  the  earth's  order,  that 
they  might  be  constantly  and  clearly  before  his  eyes 
in  his  studies.  In  his  latter  days,  he  loved  not  so 
much  to  ponder  upon  the  great  dreamings  of  phi- 
losophy, as  to  consider  the  actual  heavens,  and  the 
stars.  It  is  a  striking  coincidence  between  him  and 
his  compeer  in  the  Senate,  John  C.  Calhoun,  that 
both  loved  the  study  of  astronomy  in  their  old  age. 
Such  topics  of  physical  knowledge  are  constantly 
brought  out  in  his  imagery. 

Tangible  facts,  then,  and  truths  closely  applicable 
to  facts,  were  his  matter  of  discourse.  These,  ac- 
cumulated from  the  studies  and  the  observations  of 
many  years,  it  was  his  to  grasp  with  the  permanency 
and  fidelity  of  metal-plate  in  his  cast-iron  memory. 
Holding  them  then,  thus  steadily,  it  was  his  province 
either  to  apply  to  them  decisions  of  legal  author- 


68  CONGRESS. 

ities,  or  to  apply  them,  with  intense  directness,  and 
severe  exclusiveness  of  all  but  those  which  were 
exactly  telling,  to  the  desired  conclusion  or  the  po- 
litical proposition.  His  facts  and  postulates  were 
like  a  small  but  veteran  force,  a  soldiery  taught 
in  a  precise  and  iron  discipline.  Each  of  them  is 
always  in  the  exact  spot,  and  exact  attitude,  in  which 
his  power  will  best  tell  on  the  enemy. 

It  has  been  truly  said,  that  great  as  Webster  was 
in  the  Cabinet,  his  greatest  exhibitions  were  at  the 
Bar.  There,  with  the  proved  facts,  with  the  rigorous 
principles,  with  the  conflict  of  testimony,  with  the 
fluctuating  incidents  of  a  jury  trial,  the  false  wit- 
ness trembling  before  him,  the  true  witness  shining 
brighter  and  brighter  under  the  furnace  of  cross-ex- 
amination, and  he  himself  kindling  with  the  defiant 
antagonisms  of  commensurate  minds ;  there,  as  in 
the  celebrated  Salem  Knapp  case,  the  relentless  grasp 
and  ponderous  swing  of  his  magnificent  mind  was 
best  displayed.  Deficient  as  he  was  in  gushing 
personal  sympathies  outside  of  his  little  circle  of 
friendly  satellites,  in  "  causes "  and  for  "  causes  " 
he  was  always  warm  and  eager.  The  ambition, 
which,  more  than  any  other,  possessed  him  for  the 
first  forty  years  of  his  life,  was  to  be  known  as  a 
lawyer,  felt  as  a  lawyer,  and  posthumously  celebrated 
as  a  lawyer.  This  he  said,  and  this  his  actions 
proved.  Afterwards,  when  his  country  became  his 
client,  he  was  still  the  great  political  lawyer.  He 
was  still  contending  for  abstract  "  causes,"  not  for 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  69 

principles  as  principles,  not  for  persons  as  individ- 
uals. Institutions,  organizations,  abstractions,  con- 
stitutions, became  the  subjects  of  his  advocacy.  It 
was  a  kingly  advocacy,  but  it  was  advocacy  still ; 
and  it  was  the  hard,  stringent  advocacy  of  a  thinker 
for  men,  not  a  lover  of  them.  Yet,  how  grand  was 
that  advocacy !  It  was  before  a  generation  for  an 
Administration,  it  was  before  many  generations  for 
the  eternal  unity  of  America ;  it  was  for  the  Consti- 
tution which  Washington  had  baptized.  But  it  was 
always  the  abstract  institution  for  which  he  strug- 
gled ;  not  the  immortal  man  who  was  to  be  blessed 
under  it,  nor  the  immutable  principle  which  was  to 
be  embalmed  in  it.  Henry  Clay  always  spoke  to 
and  for  "  My  Countrymen " ;  Webster  dedicated 
his  speeches  to  "  My  Country."  In  the  one,  the 
warm  heart  and  the  invincible  will  predominated ; 
in  the  other,  the  almighty  understanding. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  that  Webster  was  not 
of  the  highest  order  of  minds,  the  columnar  minds 
which  rise  over  the  buried  levels  of  the  ages.  The 
curtains  of  his  thought  hung  round  his  mind  too 
near  the  present  age,  and  the  immediate  exigency, 
for  any  immortality  other  than  that  which  results 
from  the  undying  interest  of  his  themes,  presented 
and  enforced  as  they  are,  by  him,  with  adequate 
powers.  So  the  close,  conclusive  opinion  of  that 
Judge  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  who 
presented  the  sentiment  of  the  Northern  mind  upon 
the  test  case  of  the  slave  Dred  Scott,  will  survive  to 


70  CONGRESS. 

be  read  and  pondered  over,  through  all  the  years  and 
generations  in  which,  practically  or  theoretically,  the 
great  heresy  against  which  it  is  levelled  shall  as- 
tonish and  divide  the  faith  of  men.  That  opinion 
of  Judge  Curtis  of  Massachusetts,  if  he  should 
speak  no  word  henceforth  evermore,  carries  him  in- 
evitably, into  and  far  beyond  the  memories  of  men 
not  yet  born  into  the  world,  with  a  reputation  ever 
renewing.  It  is  solid,  frowning,  freezing;  an  apt 
specimen  of  the  iceberg  architecture  of  those  Arctic 
latitudes  of  high  judicial  thought.  But  upon  it,  as 
upon  a  monument,  his  name  is  carved  for  ever,  as 
the  name  of  our  own  Arctic  explorer  is  cut  on  the 
face  of  the  huge  Humboldt  Glacier.  But  without 
that  singular  occasion,  this  judge  would  have  been 
chiefly  remembered  by  the  legal  antiquary,  as  the 
upright  and  able  master  of  the  laws,  who  creditably 
sustained  the  name  of  the  celebrated  State  which 
gave  him  to  the  National  Court.  Accordingly,  men 
will  read  Webster  as  they  are  interested  in  the  Re- 
public of  America,  and  in  the  political  "  cases," 
which  sprang  up  in  the  course  of  his  checkered 
career.  They  will  not  read  him,  because  they  are 
interested  in  the  human  mind  or  in  man ;  and  in 
the  political  "  cases  "  of  all  humanity,  independent 
of  country  or  of  age. 

The  great  works  of  Plato  and  Bacon,  of  Cicero 
and  Burke,  shall  yet  speak  to  a  new  civilization 
still  intent  upon  their  pages,  as  much  in  advance 
of  that  to  which  Webster  spoke,  as  is  the  Saxon 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  71 

civilization  to  the  effete  stagnation  of  the  torpid 
Asiatic.  No  rings  of  the  ages,  or  of  Himalayan 
boundaries  of  spaces,  fence  them  in.  They  tower 
sublime,  above  the  wrecks  of  time,  above  the  walls 
of  space.  The  Column  of  Trajan  stands  in  the 
Forum  at  Rome,  amid  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  city 
and  the  decay  of  the  modern  city ;  yet  rising  just  as 
bright  and  high  in  the  sunbeams  to-day,  and  fling- 
ing on  the  remnants  of  a  thousand  years  which  lie 
around  it  the  same  bold  shadow,  as  when  its  sight 
first  cheered  the  columns  of  the  conquering  Em- 
peror, of  whose  fame  it  was  the  cap-stone.  So  is  it 
with  the  statues  of  those  men  who,  in  their  life- 
time, gazed  down  upon  the  fleeting  questions  of  the 
hour.  They  stand  upon  the  pedestals  of  eternity. 
But  within  his  sphere  Webster  was  as  great  as 
man  could  be,  and  for  appeals  to  the  intellect,  was 
the  greatest  of  orators.  His  appeal  lay  to  the  mind, 
primarily  and  all  the  time.  He  never  assumed 
directly  to  persuade  the  will,  or  to  seduce  the  fancy. 
His  imaginative  powers  were  only  brought  into 
service,  to  throw  light  and  radiance  on  the  path- 
way of  his  intellect.  His  imagination  was  entirely 
subordinate  to  his  intellect.  It  never  gave  him  the 
intuitive  grasp  of  conclusions.  He  labored  to  his 
conclusions,  by  the  steps  of  a  plodding  but  untiring 
reason.  He  had  imaginative  gifts  of  a  very  high 
class.  Occasionally  they  would  gleam  out,  as  in 
his  apostrophe  to  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  in  his 
Pilgrim  Pictures,  and  in  his  vivid  drawing  of  the 


72  CONGRESS. 

death-scenes  of  the  murdered  Mr.  White  of  Salem. 
But  the  stem  condensation  of  the  practice  of  his 
profession  had  evidently  cramped  and  enfeebled  its 
wing ;  and  the  powers  of  his  fancy  were,  as  a  gen- 
eral thing,  only  employed  in  calling  up  those  minor 
images  and  figures  which  give  the  beauty  or  the 
vividness  to  words.  The  general  surface  of  his 
oratory,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  rather  arid.  There 
are  passages  of  soul-lifting  sentiment,  and  imagina- 
tions which  give  such  "local  habitation  and  name" 
to  thoughts,  as  to  catch  the  eye  of  millions ;  but  the 
rarest  and  most  inspiring  occasions  were  needed,  to 
stimulate  him  thus  to  array  his  stately  oratory.  The 
inspiration  fell  upon  him,  only  when  the  waters  were 
vehemently  troubled. 

The  imaginative  and  sentimental  elements  of  his 
oratory  were  not  constant  or  uniform.  His  oratory 
was  not  a  limpid  stream  purling  along  over  choicely- 
culled  facts,  and  between  the  green  banks  of  a  deli- 
cate diction  always  sweet  with  genial  tints,  and 
grateful  with  variegated  hues ;  nor,  again,  was  it  a 
broad  sheet  of  splendor,  like  the  physical  beauty 
of  that  divine  bay  which  sleeps  under  the  soft 
shadow  of  Vesuvius,  suffused  with  sensual  charms  ; 
as  is  the  luxurious  rhetoric  of  De  Quincey's  writing, 
or  the  voluptuous  colorings  of  Titian's  paintings. 
If  we  could  compare  it  to  any  physical  object,  it 
would  be  to  his  own  Atlantic  Ocean,  with  whose 
breakers  he  loved  to  wanton,  and  literally  "  laid  his 
hand  upon  their  mane,"  as  they  surged  up  to  Marsh- 


DANIEL   WEBSTEK.  73 

field.  The  ocean  level  was  his  level  ;  the  ocean, 
which  in  its  repose  is  not  beautiful,  presenting  only 
an  image  of  far  extended  and  enormous  powers, 
slumbering ;  but  whose  awful  beauty  appears,  when 
clouds  and  tempests  are  the  background;  whose 
impressive  grandeurs  and  portentous  might  burst 
forth  only  when  the  hurricanes  plough  through  its 
lowest  depths. 

How  much  imaginative  richness,  however,  had  all 
his  lifetime  been  lying  latent,  entangled  as  it  were 
and  lost,  in  the  labyrinths  of  his  understanding,  his 
numberless  letters  written  to  all  quarters  and  per- 
sons after  his  famous  7th  of  March  Speech,  abun- 
dantly reveal.  In  defence  of  that  Speech,  he  had  to 
say  the  same  thing  to  a  multitude  of  correspondents ; 
as  all  his  letters  written  then,  continually  got  into 
the  papers,  it  was  essential  that  they  should  not  be 
monotonous,  —  piping  one  uniform  chord.  Accord- 
ingly, it  was  very  interesting  and  surprising,  to  see 
how  he  idealized,  varied,  and  adorned  the  single 
theme.  At  no  part  of  his  life  save  his  youth,  did  he 
display  a  fancy,  so  fertile  and  so  jocund.  His  muse 
of  poetry  seemed,  like  Rip  Van  Winkle,  to  have 
gone  to  sleep  when  he  outgrew  his  youth,  and  waked 
up  again  as  he  approached  his  grave.  Then,  he  grew 
positively  flowery.  As  our  autumnal  forests,  blush- 
ing with  regal  damask  tints,  tell  the  story  of  the 
manifold  sweet  influences,  to  which  for  the  long  sum- 
mer they  have  been  subjected, — the  sunshine,  the 
dew,  the  clouds,  —  so,  the  autumn  of  his  life  revealed 
7 


74  CONGRESS. 

the  silent  influences,  which  had  all  the  time  been 
secretly  nestling  around  his  heart,  in  the  harsh  battle 
with  the  world  for  his  renown. 

It  is  an  entire  mistake  to  suppose  him  utterly 
devoid  of  warm  feeling.  Although  he  could  hardly 
be  considered  as  having  those  attributes  of  femin- 
ity pervading  his  composition,  which  complete  and 
perfect  the  masculine  energies,  yet  deep  hidden  in 
the  caverns  of  his  rough  nature  were  undoubtedly 
secret  springs  of  feeling ;  and  on  peculiar  occasions, 
circumstances  would  smite  the  rock,  and  the  waters 
would  gush  out ;  but  this  was  very  rare.  He  was 
large-hearted,  but  only  within  a  limited  circle.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  touching  than  the  manner  in 
which  he  always  spoke  of  his  brother  Ezekiel,  his 
family,  his  farm  at  Franklin  which  recalled  his  af- 
fectionate memories  of  boyhood.  To  his  trusted 
personal  friends  he  was  self-sacrificing,  and  cordial 
without  measure  in  his  love.  His  volumes  of 
Speeches,  he  dedicated  to  some  of  them,  in  dedica- 
tions instinct  with  dignified  affection.  "  Books," 
said  he  to  a  lady  friend  in  Washington,  "  Books, 
affectionate  friendships  and  their  remembrances,  are 
the  chief  joys  of  life."  It  was  a  very  singular  fact, 
illustrative  of  his  sensibility,  which  he  related  to  a 
distinguished  editor  of  Washington,  that  many 
years  after  the  Salem  trial  of  the  murderers  of  Mr. 
White,  in  reading  over  his  own  argument,  and 
especially  the  descriptive  scene  of  the  murder,  he 
quite  forgot  for  a  moment  its  authorship,  and  was 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  75 

actually  moved  to  tears.  When  he  addressed  the 
Senate  in  eulogy  of  Calhoun,  the  morning  after  he 
died,  he  said,  "  I  had  a  tender  friendship  for  him." 
The  death  of  his  children  wrung  his  heart  with' un- 
told grief.  In  his  latter  years  he  lost  a  favorite  child, 
and  many  thought  that,  like  Burke,  mourning  to 
death,  and  refusing  to  be  comforted  for  the  loss  of 
his  son,  so  Webster  for  his  loss  grieved  always  to 
the  end.  When  he  pleaded  the  well-known  cause, 
involving  the  chartered  rights  of  Dartmouth  College, 
his  Alma  Mater,  we  have  heard  from  an  eyewitness, 
that  his  feelings,  repressed  during  the  great  argu- 
ment, broke  out  at  the  close.  He  finished  the  argu- 
ment,— then  he  made  a  significant  stop.  His  deep 
eye  glistened  with  the  dewdrops  of  feeling.  He 
turned  to  one  of  the  opposite  counsel,  himself  a 
graduate  of  the  College,  and  in  a  deep,  plaintive 
tone,  broken,  half  inaudible  with  suppressed  emo- 
tion, he  concluded  a  final  paragraph  by  these  signi- 
ficant words :  "  I  have  argued  my  case.  I  know 
not  how,  your  Honors,  this  case  may  be  decided, 
but  I  know  that  if  I  saw  my  Alma  Mater  receiving 
blow  after  blow  and  stab  after  stab,  I  would  not  be 
the  one  to  whom  she  should  turn  in  her  agony  with 
the  reproachful  words,  '  Et  tu,  Brute ! ' '  There  was 
silence  as  he  ended ;  and  looking  at  each  other,  the 
Judges  saw  themselves  in  tears. 

But  Webster's  heart  beat  for  only  few  objects, 
and  those  were  very  dear  or  very  great.  His  close 
friends  and  his  country,  to  these  his  generous  love 


76  CONGRESS. 

went  out  with  prodigal  liberality.  Very  rarely,  how- 
ever, did  he  let  the  world  look  into  his  heart.  He 
had  generally,  to  the  outward  eye,  a  Stoic  impas- 
siveness  of  appearance,  and  a  Spartan  sternness  of 
mood.  But  for  all  that,  the  feelings  were  beneath  ; 
smouldering,  not  burnt  out.  What  he  thought  and 
felt  about  the  disgraceful  abandonment  of  him  by 
the  Whig  Party  in  1852,  the  public  never  knew.  He 
went  down  to  his  sea-washed  Marshfield,  and  told 
his  griefs  to  none.  In  silence  he  devoured  his  heart, 
though  sleep  came  to  him  never  more.  If  that 
great  Whig  Party,  for  which  he  had  done  so  much, 
could  then  have  drawn  the  curtains  of  his  couch, 
they  would  have  seen  another  Dying  Gladiator,  "  his 
manly  brow  convulsed  with  pain,  but  conquering 
agony." 

All  his  distinguishing  traits  demanded  the  trumpet 
of  real  battle,  to  bring  them  into  play.  The  mock- 
heroics  of  parade  occasions  he  never  indulged  in; 
nor  on  occasions  of  even  more  practical  utility,  but 
devoid  of  critical  emergency  and  immediate  results, 
was  he  up  to  the  mark.  Lecture  Committees  have 
paid  fabulous  sums,  to  write  the  name  of  "  Daniel 
Webster"  at  the  head  of  their  Programme  ;  but  only 
to  be  stultified  and  paralyzed  at  the  hard,  drowsy 
periods,  in  which  he  presented  some  views,  intrin- 
sically great,  and  insufferably  dull.  Dinners,  the 
tickets  to  which  had  been  paid  for  as  if  they  had 
drawn  prizes  in  the  lottery,  have  turned  out  complete 
failures,  when  he  was  relied  on  as  the  chief  oratoric 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  77 

ornament  of  the  table.  The  old  war-horse  would 
not  charge,  in  a  sham-fight.  He  was  no  capering 
Andalusian,  prancing  on  wherever  a  gay  banner  flut- 
tered. "  True  eloquence  must  exist  in  the  man,  in 
the  subject,  in  the  occasion,"  was  his  maxim ;  and 
his  occasion  must  be  one  commensurate  with  his 
genius.  In  ordinary  hours,  he  was  ordinary,  extra- 
ordinary. On  common  themes,  he  either  contented 
himself  with  brief  statements,  as  curt  and  clear  as  a 
good  newspaper  paragraph  ;  or  if  he  undertook  more, 
he  only  floundered  about,  unwieldy.  In  such  scant 
and  shallow  limits,  he  was  as  cumbrous  and  awk- 
\vard  as  a  whale  in  a  frog-pond.  The  buoyant  surge 
of  a  grand  hour  must  swell  beneath  him,  before  his 
weighty  thoughts  could  get  in  motion  and  swim  up 
into  sight. 

This  dulness  on  common  occasions  was  the  result, 
partly  of  the  want  of  intellectual  stimulus,  which 
they  could  not  supply ;  but  partly,  and  perhaps  more 
decisively,  it  was  to  be  attributed  to  the  essential, 
indefeasible  integrity  of  his  mind.  His  mind  was 
essentially  true.  His  fervor  and  his  sentiment  rose 
just  as  there  was  a  real  need  for  them.  Intellect- 
ually, no  man  ever  had  a  more  inflexible  loyalty  to 
truth.  Hence  he  could  not  magnify  a  puerile  theme 
into  a  magnificent  subject.  Nor  could  he  work 
himself  up  to  spurious  enthusiasms  over  cheap  top- 
ics. He  could  not,  if  he  would,  make  himself  like 
the  object  of  Cicero's  sneer  ;  an  advocate  who 
argued  a  trumpery  case  about  three  kids,  and  ha- 
7* 


78  CONGRESS. 

rangued  with  a  pump-handle  passion,  about  the 
slaughters  of  Cannae,  and  about  Mithridates.  The 
dimensions  and  proportions  of  things  he  saw.  As 
he  saw  them,  he  spoke  them  ;  if  they  were  humble, 
then  he  spoke  humbly ;  if  they  were  lofty,  then  he 
spoke  loftily. 

This  is  eminently  a  trait  of  the  true  Demosthenic 
orator  in  distinction  from  the  Rhetorician,  the  Isoc- 
rates  of  the  schools.  The  great  orator  rises  with 
his  occasion ;  the  rhetorician  falls,  on  the  greatest 
occasions ;  the  hour  is  too  much  for  him ;  he  must 
create  his  own  occasions,  or  come  short  of  its  de- 
mands. Webster  had  the  thorough-going  Saxon 
love  of  truth.  His  mind  was  of  the  modern  Puritan 
school,  not  of  the  agile  and  wily  Greek  order.  In 
court  cases,  we  never  considered  him  a  reliable  advo- 
cate for  a  bad  cause;  although  great  sums  were  paid 
to  him  to  try  to  defend  them.  If  the  cause  was  bad, 
Webster  saw  its  infirmity  so  distinctly  all  the  time, 
that  his  advocacy  rather  damaged  than  aided  it. 
The  fatal  break  in  it  would  not  "  Down,"  at  the  bid- 
ding of  his  paid  volition.  But  if  the  cause  hung 
evenly  poised  or  was  unequivocally  good,  no  craft  of 
counsel,  no  jugglery  of  words,  could  twist  up  or  mask 
its  merits.  That  stern  power  sat  by,  waiting  to  reply 
to  all  the  craft  of  counsel,  with  his  firm  hold  upon 
the  true  points  all  the  time,  like  the  talons  of  an 
eagle  on  its  prey ;  and  the  truth  was  certain  to  re- 
appear. It  was  a  just  and  intelligent  tribute  of 
Calhoun's  to  him,  when  he  said,  "  Webster  can't 


DANIEL  WEBSTSR.  79 

speak  against  what  he  knows  to  be  true.  If  he's 
himself  convinced,  it  will  come  out,  it  will  come  out." 

Kindred  to  this  intellectual  truthfulness,  which 
lent  to  his  speaking  the  aspect  of  a  sturdy  honesty 
which  scorned  deceit,  was  the  grave  religious  convic- 
tion which  always  animated  his  elaborate  thoughts, 
and  sometimes  hallowed  their  accents  as  with  in- 
spired sublimity.  He  was  once  asked,  what  was  the 
greatest  thought  with  which  his  mind  had  ever  been 
occupied.  He  replied  instantly,  but  solemnly,  "  God, 
and  man's  relation  to  God."  We  remember  well 
his  tribute  to  Jeremiah  Mason,  in  the  Supreme  Court 
in  Boston;  and  with  what  deep-volumed  tones  he 
spoke  of  him,  —  the  rival  and  friend  of  his  youth, 
the  Christian,  in  contrast  with  the  unbeliever,  the 
man  without  God  in  the  world.  "  Without  God  in 
the  world,"  said  he,  with  apostolic  fervor,  "  The  man 
who  is  without  God  in  the  world,  has  broken  the 
chain  that  binds  him  to  the  throne  of  the  universe." 
Constitutionally  religious  and  truthful  in  the  ulti- 
mate impulses  of  his  mind  as  he  was,  these  tenden- 
cies were  of  course  reflected  in  the  matter  and  style 
of  his  speaking. 

The  extreme  healthiness  of  his  mind,  also,  gave  an 
additional  appearance  of  honesty  and  soundness  to 
its  work.  He  had  nothing  in  the  least  morbid  about 
him  ;  no  transcendental,  sickly  nonsense  floating  on 
his  thoughts,  and  veiling  their  strength  with  gos- 
samer films.  He  viewed  men  and  life  with  no  mis- 
anthropy. He  confessed  to  a  friend,  in  his  later  days, 


80  CONGRESS. 

that  he  had  enjoyed  a  happy  life  ;  and  added,  what 
few  men  could  say,  "  I  would  live  it  all  over  again, 
if  I  had  the  chance."  He  utterly  repudiated  By- 
ron's sentiment  descriptive  of  the  advancing  years 
of  man,  "  Who  drives  life's  sad  post-horses  slowly 
o'er  the  dreary  frontier  of  youth."  Therefore,  his 
oratory  is  all  healthy-toned  and  natural.  It  is  either 
sweet-tempered  and  powerful,  or  it  is  sarcastic  and 
denunciatory ;  but  when  it  is  bitter,  it  is  a  healthy 
bitterness,  not  a  caustic  sourness. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  ponderous  force  of  his 
mind,  the  elevation  and  range  of  his  ideas,  the  sub- 
limities of  his  sentiment  and  heart-passion,  his  intel- 
lectual loyalty  to  truth,  the  profound  religious  ele- 
ment brooding  over  his  nature,  as  they  all  appeared 
in  his  oratory ;  there  was  in  him  another  quality, 
which  gave  point  and  application  to  all  these,  and 
singularly  characterized  his  public  discourse.  That 
quality  was  Patriotism.  If  ever  a  great  mortal  loved 
a  grand  object  with  a  befitting  love,  —  a  love  which 
mingled  with  his  talk,  with  his  dreams,  with  his 
most  rapturous  enthusiasms,  which  permeated  his 
being,  and  "would  tire  torture  and  time,  and  bum 
when  he  expired,"  —  that  love  was  Webster's  for 
America.  He  loved  his  country,  his  whole  country, 
and,  save  his  immediate  friends,  literally  nothing  but 
his  country ;  and  he  loved  her  to  the  last.  Bitter 
as  was  General  Scott's  nomination  for  the  Presidency 
to  him,  yet,  on  his  death-bed,  he  wrote  a  letter,  advis- 
ing his  New  York  friends  to  vote  for  him.  The 
letter,  however,  was  suppressed  by  others. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  81 

This  impassioned  love  of  his  mother-land  was  even 
poetically  great.  It  was  the  Antique  Patriotism.  As 
the  gods  of  antiquity  were  fabled  to  brood  over  and 
watch  the  favored  cities  of  their  affections,  so,  he 
folded  his  America  to  his  heart,  with  a  proud  and 
paternal  passion.  Men  of  royalty  of  nature  have  a 
key-note  to  their  whole  lives.  With  one  it  is  Re- 
ligion, with  another  Philanthropy,  with  another,  op- 
position to  Slavery.  With  him,  it  was  Love  of 
Country  !  With  her  glories,  her  successes,  his  hopes 
were  linked  as  with  the  prosperity  of  a  dear  ward. 
When  her  clipper-winged  commerce  vexed  every 
sea,  when  her  radiant  flag  advanced  on  every  shore, 
when  two  opposite  oceans  mirrored  the  banner  on 
her  boundary,  then  the  soul  and  mind  of  that  Son 
of  the  New  Hampshire  Hills  took  it  all  in  with  a 
mighty  rapture ;  and  it  lay  unrolled  before  the  visions 
of  his  daily  and  his  nightly  dreams,  one  boundless 
panorama  of  delight.  As  America  is  great,  so  he 
who  can  really  take  into  his  bosom  the  rushing  tides 
of  her  life,  and  is  borne  with  those  torrents  onward, 
must  be  himself  energized  beyond  the  common 
measure  of  men.  He  who  can  catch  and  keep  the 
pace  of  a  giant,  must  be  himself  of  giant  stature. 
The  main  fountain  of  his  enthusiasm  was  a  sympa- 
thetic rising  with  the  mighty  flood-tides  of  American 
impulse  or  power. 

When  he  first  came  on  the  stage,  the  Republic 
was  blooming  with  the  glow  of  the  Revolutionary 
baptism.  He  did  not  see  her  convulsive  struggle,  for 


82  CONGRESS. 

life.  He  saw  her  in  full  being,  full-armed  and 
confident,  surmounted  with  the  iron  crown  of  her 
Independence  ;  "  glittering  and  decorating  the  ele- 
vated sphere,  she  just  began  to  move  in."  So  he 
would  fain  see  her  always ;  the  flush  of  immortal 
youth  crimsoning  her  cheek,  the  pride  of  unbroken 
triumph  mantling  her  lip.  Never  could  he  admit 
the  possibility  of  "  Death's  pale  flag  advancing 
there."  How  wildly  charged  with  all  the  passionate 
fervor  of  a  deep  nature,  sounds  that  splendid  invo- 
cation to  his  Maker  and  his  Country,  with  which  he 
rounded  off  and  ended  the  immortal  speech  in  the 
Senate,  for  New  England  and  the  Constitution  !  that 
final  prayer,  worthy  to  stand  with  the  great  "  Oath  " 
of  Demosthenes,  when  he  swore  to  the  Greeks  "  by 
Marathon,  by  Salamis "  ;  that  prayer,  that  his  last 
lingering  glance  might  rest  upon  the  gorgeous  ensign 
of  his  country,  known  and  honored  throughout  the 
world,  and  streaming  out  in  every  wind  beneath  the 
heavens,  the  motto,  dear  to  every  American  heart, 
"  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  for  ever,  one  and 
inseparable."  That  prayer  shall  echo  for  ever  around 
this  whole  continent.  When  Patagonia  shall  be  an- 
nexed, it  has  been  justly  said,  the  Patagonian  school- 
boys will  declaim  it  in  their  school-room.  Unlike 
Grattan,  he  had  not  sat  by  his  country's  cradle  ;  and 
the  imploring  prayer  rose  from  the  very  hiding-places 
of  his  soul,  that  he  might  never  follow  with  the 
mourners  to  her  grave.  It  happened  to  the  writer  to 
be  in  the  company  of  this  patriot  orator,  when  the 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  83 

news  was  brought  to  him  of  an  unprecedented 
outbreak  of  passion  in  the  Senate-chamber  of  the 
United  States;  the  time  when  Senator  Foote  of 
Mississippi,  after  one  of  his  ragings,  drew  a  pistol 
upon  Senator  Benton.  Mr.  Webster  heard  the  ac- 
count in  deep  silence.  Then  his  first  words  spoke 
the  sovereign  feeling  of  his  nature,  —  "  I  'm  sorry 
for  my  country."  Mary  of  England  declared,  that 
the  name  of  her  Jost  city  of  Calais  would  be  found 
written  on  her  heart  when  she  died.  So  might 
Webster  have  prophesied  that  "  America"  would  be* 
legible  on  his. 

Our  people  have  been  tauntingly  asked,  "  Where  is 
your  national  literature  ?  "  Aside  from  our  historical 
works,  it  is  in  our  political  speeches,  state  papers, 
and  newspapers ;  here,  are  the  characteristic  germs 
of  a  national  literature.  The  speeches  and  state 
papers  of  the  first  Congress  sound,  as  Chatham  said, 
with  the  tones  of  a  remarkable  body  of  men  ;  they 
are  the  voices  of  a  Senate  of  Kings.  Webster  is  not 
unworthy  of  their  royal  fellowship.  When  he  was 
in  England,  they  called  him  appropriately,  "  the 
great  American."  His  oratory  is  all  American. 
All  the  influences  which  have  roused  America  are 
apparent  in  his  productions.  He  is  emphatically  the 
child  and  mouth-piece  of  America.  His  nature  was 
too  hard,  to  take  impressions  from  any  light  causes. 
The  superficial  foreign  influences  of  Europe  and  of 
modern  literature,  which  play  around  our  cities,  and 
affect  our  men  of  letters,  had  made  no  impress 


84  CONGRESS. 

upon  him.  Every  speech  of  his  bears  the  stamp 
of  "  America,"  as  broadly  cut  as  the  Federal  Eagle 
is  stamped  on  the  national  coin. 

His  oratory  is  associated  with  all  the  scenes  of  the 
highest  and  most  enduring  interest  in  the  history  of 
the  land ;  with  the  war-drums  of  Bunker  Hill,  with 
the  tomb  of  Washington,  with  all  the  spots  of 
intermediate  glory  between  these  wide  extremes. 
Throughout  the  land,  "  the  meanest  rill,  the  mightiest 
river,  flows,  mingling  with  his  fame  for  ever."  But 
not  with  these  material  scenes  of  our  glory  only,  is 
he  joined ;  with  all  the  fearful  or  the  glad  hours 
of  our  national  sorrow  or  triumph,  for  two  genera- 
tions of  men,  his  oratory  is  indissolubly  connected; 
and  finally,  it  will  be  found  that  he  habitually 
moved  amid  the  vast  and  universal  interests  of  the 
country. 

It  has  been  written  of  Edmund  Burke,  that  he 
had  in  his  mind  the  type,  the  possibility  or  the  de- 
velopment of  all  the  mental  traits  of  his  British 
countrymen,  great  and  small.  His  was  the  English 
mind.  It  might  with  equal  truth  be  said,  that 
Webster  was  the  American  mind.  He  had  not  the 
temperament,  but  he  had  peculiarly  the  mind  of  this 
continent.  If  the  flood  should  come  again,  and 
from  the  wreck  of  this  side  of  the  world  the  six 
volumes  of  Webster's  Speeches  alone  should  be 
preserved,  the  assiduous  explorer  might  from  them 
pick  out,  and  put  together,  an  outline  framework 
of  the  American  Character  and  the  American  His- 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  85 

tory.      Every  page  would   tell  some  characteristic 
or  distinctive  national  trait  or  fact,  like  a  slab  ex- 
humed from  Nineveh. 

Webster  was  the  successor  to  the  thoughts  of 
Washington.  He  carried  out  and  continued  in  his 
oratory,  the  principles  embodied  in  the  Farewell  Ad- 
dress of  "  the  man  whom  Providence  left  childless 
that  his  country  might  call  him  '  Father.'  "  It  was 
the  thought  of  Washington,  that  there  should  be  one 
central  source  of  command  for  the  republic,  and  a 
fraternal  love  between  the  people.  When  the  tribes 
of  Greece  had  carried  their  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, they  turned  from  each  other  and  parted  asun- 
der. But  the  tribes  of  America  had  only  hugged 
together  more  closely,  after  their  victory.  That  they 
should  be,  not  a  League  of  Commonwealths,  but 
a  nation  of  fellow-citizens,  was  the  living  and  dying 
prayer  of  Washington  to  them.  But  in  another 
generation,  the  country  had  doubled  and  redoubled. 
New  rivalries  of  interest  had  risen  up.  The  old 
races  had  more  clearly  defined  their  separate  blood. 
New  races  had  come  into  the  great  family.  Be- 
tween the  aggregate  millions  of  the  republic,  there 
had  ceased  to  be  a  sympathetic  kindling  of  emotion, 
under  the  same  scenes  and  at  the  same  names  which 
had  touched  responsive  chords  in  the  "  old  thirteen  " 
States.  To  make  this  country  again  the  unit  which 
it  was  at  the  beginning,  was  the  labor  of  Webster  ; 
and  more  than  any  orator  of  America,  he  contributed 
to  do  it.  This  we  consider  to  have  been  his  great 


86  CONGRESS. 

work,  his  golden  work ;  aureum  opus.  He  national- 
ized the  several  States  again.  He  labored  to  rub  out 
from  the  ideal  of  the  citizens,  the  conception  of  sep- 
arate sovereignties  ;  as  the  Flags  of  the  old  States 
had  been  furled  away  from  their  vision,  at  the  bid- 
ding of  the  Constitution.  A  great  form,  embodying 
the  single  idea  of  a  country  —  one  country  —  one 
liberty  —  one  America  —  he  fixed  permanently  in  the 
national  imagination.  By  the  memorable  "  Hayne 
Speech,"  as  it  is  styled,  he  readjusted  the  Constitu- 
tion on  the  immovable  foundations  where  Wash- 
ington, and  Hamilton,  and  Madison,  had  built  it,  and 
from  which  Calhoun,  McDuffie,  and  Hayne,  had 
pushed  it  off.  Having  thus  replaced  the  Ark  of  the 
constitutional  covenant,  he  threw  before  the  minds 
of  his  countrymen  a  body  of  speeches  fervent  with 
love  for  every  portion  of  the  land,  and  crowded  with 
reasonings,  sentiments,  and  allusions,  adapted  to 
them,  each  and  all.  These  speeches  were  of  a  char- 
acter certain  to  be  read  and  certain  to  be  remem- 
bered. In  themselves,  they  were  of  permanent  value  ; 
and  behind  them,  like  a  firm  watch-tower  on  the 
shifting  sands  of  politics,  he  himself  stood,  illumi- 
nating and  commanding  audience  for  them,  with  a 
splendor  of  intellectual  character  which  compelled 
even  reverence  for  the  words.  He  took  the  hands  of 
the  States,  and  joined  them  together ;  as  in  1850 
he  took  the  hands  of  hostile  Senators,  and  placed 
them  in  each  other.  No  one  familiar  with  the  Capi- 
tol in  1850  will  ever  forget  how  Senators  and  Con- 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  87 

gressmen,  who  had  never  met  before  but  in  the  an- 
tagonisms of  party  shock,  seemed  to  cluster  around 
him,  as  the  central  heart  of  a  national  sentiment. 
Nor  will  they  forget  with  what  fondness  he  ever 
after  spoke  of  every  one  of  these  antagonists  who 
brought  harmony  to  the  counsels  of  his  country. 
With  Senator  Dickinson  of  New  York,  he  had  had 
the  most  acrimonious  personal  encounter  of  his  Sen- 
atorial life  ;  but  after  Dickinson's  co-operation  with 
him  then,  he  met  him  with  unfeigned  kindness,  and 
declared  he  should  never  have  even  an  unkind 
thought  toward  him  again.  For  six  months,  just 
prior  to  the  passage  of  what  were  then  called  the 
"  Compromise  Measures,"  he  said  he  did  not  sleep  a 
single  whole  night,  harassed  with  anxieties  for  his 
country.  "  In  his  unresting  brain  was  weaving  the 
purple  "  of  the  Union's  greatness. 

His  patriotic  motives  in  the  famous  7th  of  March 
Speech,  1850,  have  never  been  fully  appreciated. 
He  made  it,  because  he  thought  it  essential  to  the 
salvation  of  the  nationality.  He  fully  expected  his 
own  political  annihilation,  as  its  immediate  result. 
However  we,  with  the  light  of  subsequent  events, 
may  dissent  from  its  policy,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
of  the  disinterested  devotion  of  those  "  Compromise" 
arguments  in  his  mouth.  The  crisis  was  most 
alarming.  On  the  morning  of  that  7th  of  March, 
a  leading  Senator  from  the  South  declared,  that  he 
went  to  the  Senate-chamber  doubting  if  it  was 
not  the  last  time  he  should  ever  be  able  to  go  to  the 
"  United  States  "  Senate. 


88  CONGRESS. 

But  the  springs  of  Webster's  action  came  from 
his  love  of  a  "  United  States"  Senate  and  Nation. 
The  terms  in  which  he  accepted  President  Fillmore's 
invitation  to  the  post  of  Secretary  of  State,  are 
decisive  of  the  thought  of  his  heart.  He  said  to  the 
President,  and  it  is  worthy  to  be  his  carved  epitaph, 
substantially  this  :  —  "I  think  we  can  carry  the 
country  through  the  crisis.  I  am  willing  to  under- 
take the  office ;  but  it  must  be  with  the  distinct 
understanding,  that  we  are  neither  of  us  to  expect 
anything  further  from  the  public"  Upon  that  basis 
he  took  the  great  office,  thinking  he  could  carry  his 
country  upon  his  shoulders  through  the  fires,  but 
believing  that  his  political  power  would  expire  with 
the  act.  Circumstances  turned  out  differently,  and 
a  portion  of  the  North  advocated  him  as  a  Presiden- 
tial candidate.  But  no  such  thing  was  then  contem- 
plated by  him.  On  the  other  hand,  by  a  different 
course  on  the  7th  of  March,  he  might  have  been  the 
idol  and  the  leader  of  the  unanimous  North  ;  and 
this  he  knew.  When  the  agony  of  that  hour  was 
over,  the  Senators  from  all  portions  of  the  country 
were  able  to  shake  hands  together.  Henry  Clay  did 
much  to  this  end,  but  Webster's  influence  was  graver, 
wider,  and  more  permanent. 

This  was  the  general  spirit  of  all  his  mature 
efforts.  He  struggled,  to  make  Bunker  Hill  Monu- 
ment visible  from  every  portion  of  the  land;  and  to 
place  the  great  names  of  the  several  States  on  the 
bead-roll  of  the  one  indivisible  Republic.  The  old 


DANIEL   WEBSTEK.  89 

States,  he  reminded  of  the  sacrament  of  suffering 
by  which  they  had  first  been  joined  together.  To 
the  new  States,  he  spoke  of  the  glorious  traditions 
of  the  national  family  into  which  they  had  entered  ; 
and  he  spread  before  them  their  grand  prospects  and 
weighty  responsibilities.  He  strove  to  teach  them 
the  names  of  the  Revolution  and  the  maxims  of 
the  Fathers ;  and  throughout  all  the  thirty  millions 
of  our  people,  to  make  the  same  thought,  the  same 
name,  the  same  deed,  touch  a  kindred  feeling  in  each 
heart,  and  rouse  a  common  echo  in  each  mind.  As 
Washington  stood  over  the  old  thirteen,  so  Webster 
stood  over  the  thirty  States.  He  stood  over  them 
with  outstretched  arms,  and  breathed  upon  them 
ever  the  breath  of  his  own  deep-souled  nationality. 
If  Washington  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the  Union, 
Webster  buttressed  it  about  with  his  reasonings,  and 
clamped  it  with  the  mutual  affections  which  his  ora- 
tory aroused.  Both  were  architects  of  American 
greatness. 

The  oratorical  part  which  the  brilliant  Hungarian, 
Kossuth,  played  before  his  countrymen  and  the  world 
for  a  short  time,  Webster  played  for  a  lifetime,  here. 
Kossuth  carried  Hungary  in  his  heart,  and  in  his 
mind.  The  perfidious  Austrian  could  not  terrify 
him,  an  Oriental  Satrapy  would  not  buy  him.  His 
morning  and  his  nightly  orisons  were  for  his  dear 
native  land  ;  the  land  of  heroic  recollections,  the 
land  which  had  rallied  in  behalf  of  Maria  Theresa 
against  her  oppressor,  and  which  was  now  rallying 


90  CONGRESS 

against  her  descendants,  from  the  same  chivalry  of 
independent  feeling.  For  Hungary,  too,  the  Magyar 
orator  suffered  imprisonments  and  cruel  mental  tor- 
tures ;  the  loss  of  gold,  the  loss  of  station,  everything 
but  honor,  everything  but  dear  love  of  the  native 
land.  Had  Hungary  succeeded  in  her  Revolution, 
Kossuth  would  probably  have  occupied  the  position 
to  her  which  Webster  filled  toward  America.  And 
when  her  eloquent  apostle  was  pleading  to  the  West 
for  the  East,  it  was  a  sight  of  rare  interest,  to  behold 
these  two  national  advocates  together; — the  one, 
the  romantic  advocate  of  Oriental  liberty,  the  other, 
the  representative  of  the  consolidated  liberty  of  the 
West.  At  the  Banquet,  which  was  given  when  the 
Senate  of  the  Union  had  received  the  great  foreigner 
in  Washington,  Webster  spoke  upon  Hungary,  and 
Kossuth  spoke  upon  America.  It  was  a  singular 
and  beautiful  contrast,  the  oratorio  representative  of 
Asian  civilization  and  Asian  taste  crying  out  for 
freedom,  and  pointing  to  America ;  the  representative 
of  American  civilization,  secure  in  its  possession,  re- 
counting the  past  glories  of  Hungary  and  drawing 
auspices  for  her  future ;  the  one  sparkling  and  af- 
fluent in  words,  and  speaking  with  that  melodic  fer- 
vency, with  which  in  ages  gone  by,  in  the  classic 
countries  near  his  Hungarian  home,  we  may  fancy 
the  stanzas  of  Homer  to  have  been  recited  at  the 
banquets  of  Ionian  chieftains  ;  the  other,  stately,  su- 
perb, and  slow,  enunciating  the  deliberate  precept 
of  the  best  thoughts  of  his  country,  with  a  deep- 


DANIEL   WEBSTEK.  91 

toned  gravity  befitting  the  attitude  of  Moses  reading 
the  ten  tables  of  Law  to  Israel. 

It  is  here  the  object,  to  consider  this  great  man 
principally  as  an  orator ;  and,  therefore,  it  is  hardly 
apt  to  dwell  on  that  varied  and  attractive  fund  of 
conversation,  which  astonished  and  delighted  all  who 
shared  his  sociality.  Samuel  Rogers,  the  English 
poet,  was  famous  with  great  people,  for  his  facile 
and  interesting  conversation  and  reminiscences. 
Rufus  Choate  was  once  asked,  how  he  thought 
Rogers's  published  table-talk  compared  with  what 
he  knew  himself  of  Webster's.  "  As  a  fiddle,  to 
two  hundred  organs,  Sir,"  was  the  prompt  and 
Johnsonian  reply.  Men  who  have  seen  numerous 
administrations  at  Washington,  and  been  intimate 
there  with  whole  generations  of  eminent  persons, 
have  said  that  a  near  intercourse  with  Mr.  Web- 
ster brought  to  light  more  numerous  and  diversi- 
fied elements  of  knowledge  and  power  than  were 
shown  even  by  the  pages  of  his  oratory.  The 
nearer  you  came  to  him,  the  more  you  realized 
the  compass,  the  amplitude,  the  solidity  of  his 
mind.  And  it  may  well  be  believed  ;  for  everything 
about  him,  the  repose  and  the  activity,  the  pos- 
ture and  the  exertion  of  his  powers,  was  Olympian. 

His  temperament  did  not  generally  charge  his 
oratory  with  its  own  peculiar  forces.  As  may  be 
inferred  from  what  has  been  said,  it  was  commonly 
sluggish  and  torpid.  It  usually  served  to  give  an  air 
of  massiveness  and  consolidation  to  his  rugged 


92  CONGRESS. 

periods.  But  only  when  the  most  lively  concep- 
tions, or  the  most  bracing  passion  worked  upon  it, 
did  it  come  to  be,  what  it  then  assuredly  was,  the 
most  formidable  constituent  of  his  oratoric  powers. 
Then  his  oceanic  energies  rose  up  ;  then  that  majes- 
tic mind  swelled  and  fired  with  an  immeasurable 
vehemence  ;  a  passion,  which,  in  denunciation,  made 
men  feel  how  terrible  the  tongue  might  be ;  and  in 
description,  lifted  them  by  a  realizing  magnetism  to 
the  full  prospects  of  the  most  commanding  contem- 
plations. Then  men  saw,  how  much  more  threaten- 
ing than  an  army  with  banners,  might  be  the  grand 
array  of  moral  energies,  concentrated  by  a  com- 
mander-in-chief  in  the  art  of  oratoric  war.  Then 
indeed,  he  spoke  with  a  power  "  to  put  a  soul  under 
the  very  ribs  of  death."  The  very  fact,  that  ordinarily 
he  was  dull  and  unimpassioned  in  his  speaking,  made 
his  infrequent  vehemence  more  effective.  It  took 
long  to  build  the  fires  in  his  vast  intellectual  furnaces, 
and  still  longer  for  them  to  affect  his  sluggard  ener- 
gies ;  but  when  the  Titanic  enginery  was  really  play- 
ing under  their  full  blast,  he  was  invincible ;  then  all 
his  faculties  were  urged  into  movement,  as  the  tor- 
nado whirls  everything  onward  in  a  hurricane  march. 
A  little  specimen  of  his  manly  energy  when  really 
roused  was  shown  in  that  notorious  speech  in  the 
Senate  in  which  Senator  Dickinson  of  New  York 
was  the  target  of  his  denunciation.  In  that  speech, 
for  a  wonder,  he  quite  lost  his  temper  ;  yet,  even  in 
the  loss  of  temper,  he  seemed  great,  though  with  a 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  93 

rude  barbaric  grandeur.  He  said  that  no  power 
known  to  man  (to  any  man  but  Dickinson),  not 
even  hydrostatic  pressure,  could  compress  so  big  a 
volume  of  lies  into  so  small  a  space,  as  he  had 
uttered  in  a  speech  which  he  was  even  then  frank- 
ing all  over  the  country  ;  and  he  said  it  with  such 
intonations,  that  one  of  his  hearers  declared  that  he 
felt,  all  the  night  afterwards,  as  if  a  heavy  cannon- 
ading was  resounding  in  his  ears.  In,  the  fury  of 
that  moment,  he  flung  papers  from  him  which  he 
had  referred  to,  half  across  the  Senate-chamber,  in 
merely  attempting  to  lay  them  down.  Vesuvius 
was  in  full  blast  then,  and  the  spent  lava  of  its 
eruption  could  not  even  fall  down,  lightly. 

In  pronouncing  that  noble  eulogy  on  Adams  and 
Jefferson,  which,  of  all  his  earlier  efforts,  approached 
nearest  to  the  impassioned  rapture  of  mood,  an  ex- 
ample appeared  of  his  combined  moral  and  physical 
energy,  the  more  noticeable  as  arising  suddenly 
from  a  dead  level  of  comparative  monotony.  He 
had  been  running  along  in  his  delivery  tamely,  when, 
suddenly,  he  came  to  the  climax  of  his  description  of 
John  Adams's  oratory ;  raising  his  form,  he  brought 
his  hands  in  front  of  him  with  a  swing,  and  stepping 
to  the  front  of  the  stage,  he  said  with  a  broad  swell 
and  an  imperious  surge  upward  of  the  gruff  tone  of 
his  voice,  "  He  spoke  onward,  right  onward  "  ;  and 
into  that  single  "  onward  "  he  threw  such  a  shock  of 
force,  that  an  auditor  who  sat  directly  in  front  of  the 
stage,  found  himself  involuntarily  half  rising  from 


94  CONGRESS. 

his  seat,  with  the  start  which  the  words  gave  him. 
He  was  not  surprised  to  observe,  that  the  others  in 
the  pew  with  him  also  started,  as  by  the  push  of  one 
forward  impulse. 

Those  who  heard  him  speak  in  Faneuil  Hall,  when 
he  came  home  to  justify  himself  to  New  England, 
for  remaining  in  President  Tyler's  Cabinet,  had  an 
opportunity  to  test  his  mere  power  of  tempera- 
ment. They  heard  that  withering  question,  —  the 
climax  of  his  answer,  to  the  alleged  destruction  of 
the  Whig  party  ;  a  question  which  he  ejaculated 
with  a  caustic  vehemence  of  sarcasm,  showing  those 
white  teeth  of  his  with  a  contemptuously  curling  lip 
and  a  tiger's  fierceness  of  expression,  "  Where  then 
shall  I  go  now  ?  "  It  was  a  correct  criticism  of  Na- 
thaniel Willis,  that  Webster,  as  an  animal,  was  so 
powerfully  developed,  that  unless  his  intellectual 
had  entirely  surpassed  his  animal  development,  he 
would  have  been  a  mob-ranter  of  the  most  head- 
long and  bovine  order. 

Webster's  temperament  was  the  bilious  and 
phlegmatic  ;  the  temperament  for  work,  for  endur- 
ance, and  for  the  tardiest  but  most  consuming 
passion.  His  swarthy  complexion  and  sluggish 
movement  alike  indicated  it ;  and  the  look  of  his 
passion-charged  eyes,  when  his  mind  was  really  illu- 
minated with  thought,  confirmed  it.  This  is  the  tem- 
perament to  wield  that  lost  power  of  oratory,  that 
terrible  energy,  that  absolute  sovereignty  over  others, 
despotic,  defiant,  deadly,  which  the  Greeks  called  — 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  95 

the  awful  power  —  TO  Seivorr)?.  It  has  been  main- 
tained that  none  of  the  other  varieties  of  tempera- 
ments can  attain  it  at. all,  especially  that  no  blue- 
eyed  Saxon  man  can  own  it.  They  say  "  it  takes 
black  eyes  for  that."  But*this  can  hardly  be  true, 
for  Henry  Clay  was  not  black-eyed,  nor  was  Mira- 
beau,  nor  Chatham.  Yet  these  orators  all  had  their 
mighty  moments,  in  which  they  revealed  this  ele- 
mental power,  and  showed  that  they,  at  least,  were 
born  with  the  ocean's  temper  and  the  lion's  mettle. 
Yet,  with  all  this  fury  and  blind  rage,  there  appeared 
generally,  in  Webster's  wildest  passion,  a  coequal 
power  of  self-command.  Decorum  reigned  supreme. 
The  decencies  of  debate,  the  decorum  of  the  scene 
and  the  subject,  were  upon  all  public  occasions  dis- 
tinctly present  to  his  mind.  He  was,  we  know,  arbi- 
trary and  sometimes  ill-natured  in  Court  squabbles ; 
but  in  Congress  and  before  the  people,  the  consid- 
eration due  to  the  audience,  and  to  his  own  historic 
character,  controlled  him  with  despotic  supremacy. 
He  spoke  and  acted  then,  as  though  conscious  that 
he  stood  upon  a  great  eminence,  and,  as  it  were,  in 
the  presence  of  Posterity. 

His  rival  Senatorial  partisan,  Mr.  Clay,  often  for- 
got himself,  in  striving  to  exercise  his  oratorical 
dictatorship;  and  in  the  English  House  of  Peers, 
Lord  Brougham  has  sometimes  not  disdained  to 
storm  and  snarl  like  a  Billingsgate  fish-woman.  So 
we  have  seen  Mr.  Benton  chafing  and  roaring,  more 
like  a  Bull  of  Bashan  let  loose  upon  the  Senators 


96  CONGRESS. 

than  the  Pater  Senatus,  the  father  of  the  American 
Senate ;  as,  from  the  age  of  his  Parliamentary  ser- 
vice, he  claimed  to  be  considered.  But  Webster  and 
Calhoun  rarely  suffered  themselves  to  forget,  that 
they  were  Senators  as  well  as  speakers.  At  any 
moment  in  the  Senate,  either  of  them  would  have 
been  fit  for  a  statue.  When  Calhoun  was  President 
of  the  Senate,  he  instituted  the  custom  of  address- 
ing the  Senators  by  that  distinguishing  name,  Sena- 
tors, not  Members ;  and  both  he  and  Webster  strove 
to  conform  their  words  to  the  dignity  of  the  desig- 
nation. In  his  speech  to  the  Senate  when  Calhoun 
died,  we  heard  Webster  allude  to  this  circumstance, 
and  in  one  emphatic  clause  he  expressed  his  admira- 
tion of  his  general  dignity.  "  He  looked  A  Roman 
Senator,  in  the  days  when  Rome  survived."  This 
speech  upon  Calhoun  by  Webster,  though  brief,  was 
very  thrilling,  by  the  thoughts  which  it  inevitably 
suggested.  Calhoun  and  the  speaker  were  contem- 
poraries in  Congress  ;  for  forty  years,  they  had  been 
accustomed  to  contend  together.  Webster's  lauda- 
tion of  any  one,  always  meant  something ;  and  thus 
applied  to  his  political  adversary  of  so  many  years, 
it  was  truly  touching.  His  manner  added  weight  to 
it.  He  was  dressed  in  black  throughout,  and  had 
evidently  put  on  the  sable  of  outward  mourning 
intentionally,  in  keeping  with  the  inward  sorrow  of 
his  soul. 

In  one  of  the  letters  published  in  Webster's  Pri- 
vate Correspondence,  there  is  a  slight  but  significant 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  97 

instance  of  his  habitual  reference  to  the  keeping  and 
fitness  of  things  in  public  places,  which,  although 
not  itself  oratoric,  illustrates  the  trait.  It  is  in  a 
letter  to  President  Fillmore,  when  he  was  his  Secre- 
tary of  State.  He  had  been  delivering  a  speech, 
about  the  time  of  the  Fishery  troubles  with  the 
British  Colonies,  which  threatened  our  pacific  inter- 
course with  England.  In  the  course  of  it,  he  had 
said,  "  The  administration  is  determined  that  the 
American  fishermen  shall  be  righted."  But  finding 
himself  next  day  reported  as  saying,  "  We  mean 
to  see  the  fishermen  righted,"  he  instantly  sent  off 
a  special  despatch  to  the  President,  denying  that  he 
had  used  those  words,  "  because,"  said  he,  "  it  would 
seem  indecorous  and  a  usurpation  of  authority  for 
me,  as  Secretary  of  State,  to  say  so."  Considering 
that  he  was,  and  knew  he  was,  the  Ajax  of  the  Ad- 
ministration, its  guide,  its  pillar,  no  Secretary  of 
State,  but  one  nervously  sensitive  to  propriety, 
would  have  noticed  the  matter  at  all. 

His  expressions  of  modesty  on  public  occasions 
were  the  result  of  this  native  sense  of  the  decorum 
of  appearances.  He  knew,  of  course,  that  he  was 
the  first  authority  in  the  American  world  on  muni- 
cipal and  political  law.  But  he  never  had  anything 
of  the  "  I  am  Sir  Oracle  "  style  of  address.  Gen- 
erally, he  rather  took  the  tone  of  the  phrase,  so  often 
used  in  his  letters,  "  If  so  humble  a  person  as  I 
might  presume  to  advise."  With  the  rhodomon- 
tade  and  pretentious  bombast,  which  disfigure  our 
9 


98  CONGRESS. 

national  character,  he  had  no  sympathy.  This  self- 
control  and  beauty  of  decorum  accompanying  his 
most  strenuous  exertions,  imparted  to  his  efforts  the 
last  touch  of  art,  by  giving  them  the  air  of  repose. 
The  loftiest  reach  of  the  Attic  arts  was,  to  express 
the  intensest  passion  and  struggle,  combined  with 
the  most  absolute  self-control ;  to  unite  external  war 
with  internal  peace.  Not  only  do  the  statues  of  the 
Apollo,  and  the  Venus  radiant  with  beauty,  express 
this,  but  even  the  Laocoon  writhing  in  the  coil  of  the 
serpents  has  the  seeming  of  self-mastery.  In  this 
principle  lurked  the  "Websterian  secret.  His  exertion 
was  always  power  in  repose,  —  power  half  leaning 
on  its  own  right  arm  ;  the  Athlete  conquering  with- 
out a  strain  or  visible  contortion.  In  the  most  en- 
ergetic and  high-wrought  things  he  ever  said,  there 
was  a  tone  of  moderation.  In  all  his  volumes  of 
Speeches  there  will  now  be  found  very  few  ex- 
travagant or  exaggerated  statements.  He  made  his 
Speech  like  a  man,  whose  intellectual  attitude  as 
well  as  history  was  to  live  after  him. 

His  oratory  and  his  mind  were  eminently  prac- 
tical. He  looked  at  the  common-sense  side  of 
everything,  and  he  inquired  what  was  really  useful 
before  he  acted.  An  intimate  companion  of  his  last 
journey  to  the  South  remarked,  that  as  they  passed 
onward,  his  conversation  ran  on  the  trees  they  moved 
under,  the  crops  they  saw,  the  farming  facilities,  and 
the  aggregate  products  of  the  regions  through  which 
they  travelled  ;  not  on  the  beauties  of  the  landscape 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  99 

or  the  aroma  of  the  groves.  And  when  that  journey 
was  interrupted  by  his  severe  sickness,  he  turned  for 
hope  to  nothing  so  earnestly  as  to  the  Sea,  —  the  salt, 
bleak,  billowy  ocean  Sea,  —  level  and  dull'and  mo- 
notonously grand,  the  useful,  the  unfathomable  Sea. 
"  Take  me  to  Marshfield,"  he  exclaimed  ;  "  O  let  me 
snuff  the  Sea ! "  If  his  oratory  had  a  capital  fault, 
it  was  that  of  being  too  hard  and  too  uniformly 
turned  to  the  merely  useful,  to  the  neglect  of  the 
engaging  or  the  delightful  fields  of  the  mind's  con- 
templations. Granite  is  an  enduring  material,  and 
fit  for  temples ;  but  it  is  not  beautiful  in  itself,  like 
that  white  marble  from  which  men  have  always 
loved  to  build  those  structures,  which  they  meant 
should  detain  the  attention  of  the  world.  The  Gold- 
en Palace  of  the  Caesars  was  the  fit  home  for  the 
living  Emperor  of  the  world,  and  the  marble  mauso- 
leum of  Adrian  was  thought  but  a  fit  sepulchre  for 
the  imperial  ashes.  And  so  should  he,  who  in  the 
moral  world  of  men's  active  thoughts  might  be  called 
the  Emperor  of  his  age,  have  laid  away  his  imperial 
thoughts  sepulchred  in  a  stately  pomp  of  rhetoric. 
But  his  thoughts  ever  pointed,  like  the  needle  to  the 
pole,  to  the  immediately  useful.  He  had  nothing 
lyrical  about  his  productions,  either  in  enthusiasm 
or  expression.  He  had  picturesqueness  and  a  rigid 
beauty,  as  in  his  Pilgrim  descriptions,  but  no  lyric 
raptures.  His  music  was  rather  of  the  organ  than 
the  lyre. 

His   letters  let  us  behind  the  set  scenes  of  his 


100  CONGRESS. 

oratory,  and  give  glimpses  of  the  man  as  well  as  the 
orator.      They  are  short,  business-like,  to  the  point. 
Where  there  is  occasion  for  it,  expressing  without 
pedantry  a  noble  sentiment ;  but  not  rich  in  indepen- 
dent thoughts,  clustering  around  the  nib  of  his  pen. 
They  show  friendship  and  cordiality  of  heart,  and 
the  sentiment  of  honesty  and  religion,  and  occasion- 
ally a  dignified  frolicsomeness.     But  they  have  noth- 
ing of  the  classic  flavor  of  Chatham's  letters  to  his 
nephew,  nothing  of  the  exuberant  richness  of  Cice- 
ro's or  Burke's  correspondence.     It  is  plain  that  he 
was  not  a  person  who  revelled  in  his  own  thoughts. 
He  thought,  because  it  was  necessary  to  his  definite 
objects  of  effort,  as  they  successively  arose.      But 
that  delight,  which  men  of  more  genius  than  talent 
feel  in  summoning  up  to  the  regions  of  sweet,  silent 
thought  their  fond  remembrances  and  their  exulting 
hopes,  he  was  utterly  unconscious  of.     Neither  was 
he    one   of  those  beings  of  sympathy,  such  as  De 
Quincey  describes  among  the  Greek  orators  of  the 
age  of  Pericles,  —  men  whose  thoughts  are  a  torment 
to  them,  until  they  are  reflected  from  the  flashing 
eyes  and  clamorous  sympathies  of  audiences.     He 
was   very  fond  of  conversation,  but    it  was   as   a 
healthful  exercise  and  play  for  his  own  mind,  not 
that  thereby  he  saw,  and  was  satisfied  to  see,  his 
own  mind  mirrored  in  the  minds  of  others.     When 
he  thought,  his  thinking  was  for  a  precise  "  case"  in 
law  or  politics ;  when  he  talked,  he  was  picking  up 
information  for  practical  application ;  when  he  moral- 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  101 

ized,  it  was  in  active  sport,  in  battling  the  waves  or 
bringing  down  the  teel  or  the  wild  duck  "  with  an 
iron  on  his  shoulder."  You  would  not  catch  him 
strolling  in  the  country,  with  no  society  but  sweet 
rumination.  When  he  was  not  working  he  was 
playing ;  and  his  playthings  were  those  common  to 
all  men,  such  as  the  sea  and  the  trees,  and  guns, 
boats,  and  good  dinners. 

He  had  nothing  of  the  rapture  and  delight  in 
speaking,  merely  as  speaking,  which  a  Heaven-com- 
missioned orator  ought  to  have,  and  which  is  an 
orator's  best  test.  In  one  of  his  letters  from  Wash- 
ington, he  observes,  "  My  friends  want  me  to  speak, 
but  I  think  I  can  do  something  better."  So  he  cast 
about  to  promote  their  interests  otherwise.  When 
he  was  in  the  State  Legislature  of  Massachusetts, 
he  made  no  memorable  speech ;  but  after  looking 
about,  as  he  says,  to  see  of  what  use  he  could  be,  he 
brought  in  a  bill  which  still  stands  as  a  law  upon 
the  statute-book,  "  To  regulate  trout-catching."  But 
the  true  orator  is  never  so  happy  as  when  he  is 
giving  away  to  his  feelings,  in  the  precise  method 
of  the  organs  of  speech.  Providence  gave  it  to  be 
an  ecstasy  to  him,  and  it  is  so.  Artists  have  gone 
without  bread  that  they  might  give  the  last  glow  to 
the  landscape,  the  last  and  softest  suffusion  to  the 
cheek  of  their  ideal,  from  nothing  but  their  rapt 
delight  in  thus  giving  reality  to  ideality.  But  Web- 
ster spoke  because  that  was  the  best  way  of  com- 
municating his  thoughts,  and  the  thought  gives  his 
9* 


102  CONGRESS. 

speech  its  pre-eminence.  He  was  eloquent,  but  it 
was  the  eloquence  of  matter;  so  valuable,  so  cogent, 
and  uttered  by  a  nature  so  profound  and  energetic, 
that  in  no  form  of  its  external  manifestation  could 
it  fail  to  be  impressive. 

And  yet  he  spoke,  and  spoke  well,  from  the  ear- 
liest college  days.  It  is  true  that  at  Phillips  Acad- 
emy, when  a  boy,  he  made  a  dreadful  piece  of  work 
of  declamation ;  but  that  was  a  juvenile  diffidence, 
which  rather  argued  well  than  ill  for  his  oratoric 
future,  and  which  speedily  wore  off  at  Dart- 
mouth College.  When  others  there  learned  their 
speeches,  he  thought  over  his ;  and  then  spoke,  not 
so  much  from  memory  as  from  a  mastery  of  the 
theme.  He  desired  the  part  at  Commencement, 
which  indicated  general  accomplishments  and  elo- 
quence. Indeed,  long  afterward,  he  remarked  to  the 
writer,  that  his  habit  of  composition  for  speaking  was 
not  so  much  to  write  out  what  he  was  going  to  say, 
as  it  was  "  to  walk  up  and  down  the  room  think- 
ing it  over  "  ;  then,  said  he,  you  get  the  whole  con- 
struction in  your  mind,  and  put  it  in  shape,  eye  to 
eye  and  face  to  face  with  your  audience.  Doubt- 
less, in  his  own  case,  in  this  way  the  very  phrases 
and  words  also  of  his  exact  thoughts  would  print 
themselves  in  his  cast-iron  moulds  of  memory. 
Especially  would  this  be  the  case  with  the  words  of 
those  closing  sentences  of  speech,  in  which  he  had 
a  habit  of  concentrating  and  crushing  up  the  whole 
thought,  —  the  very  marrow  of  his  entire  argument. 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  103 

To  these,  each  word  was  as  important  as  in  a  prop- 
osition of  Euclid  ;  they  were  the  Paixhan  guns  of  his 
intellectual  battery.  Sometimes,  though  very  rarely, 
he  extemporized.  But  even  if  this  were  often  possible 
to  him,  his  eminence  checked  it.  His  words  were 
watched  by  too  many  and  too  vast  interests,  for  him 
often  to  risk  them  unpremeditated.  But  in  noble 
scenes,  he  more  than  once  gave  way  to  himself,  and 
was  lifted  upon  the  heaving  ground-swell  of  his 
emotion  into  extemporaneous  splendor.  Thus,  when 
speaking  in  Washington,  at  the  laying  the  corner- 
stone of  the  enlargement  of  the  Capitol,  as  he  cast  his 
eyes  over  the  countless  multitude,  stretching  before 
him  in  the  sunshine,  —  the  tribes  of  his  own  people 
encamping  there,  —  and  turned  to  that  gorgeous  en- 
sign hovering  over  the  dome  of  the  Capitol,  the  glit- 
tering genius  of  a  new  world,  he  could  not  confine 
himself  to  his  prearranged  speech,  but  burst  into  the 
glorious  cloud-land  of  patriotic  improvisation.  His 
extemporaneous  repartees,  if  he  was  interrupted  in 
speaking,  were  blasting  ;  instant  they  came,  smiting 
down  like  lightning.  The  effrontery  of  the  antag- 
onism concentrated  all  his  powers  in  one  instant, 
scathing,  responsive  sentence;  one  flash  and  the  work 
was  done.  Nothing  can  be  more  telling  than  this 
presence  of  mind  and  prompt  concentration  of  one's 
resources,  before  a  crowd  startled  by  the  interrup- 
tion ;  and  nothing  can  be  more  significant  of  oratorio 
power.  With  Webster,  it  appeared  on  such  occa- 
sions, as  if  the  tempest  had  been  gathering  for  many 


104  CONGRESS. 

a  day  within  him,  and  had  burst  upon  one  sentence. 
In  the  political  Harrison  campaign  of  1840,  there 
was  an  immense  concourse  on  Boston  Common. 
Webster,  under  the  brightest  auspices  was  unfolding 
to  them  Whig  principles,  with  unwonted  zealous- 
ness.  In  the  course  of  his  speech,  he  alluded  with 
praise  to  some  features  of  the  English  Constitution. 
As  he  ended  the  laudation,  a  rough  voice  in  the 
crowd  cried  out,  "  Poh,  they  're  all  slaves  in  Eng- 
land." Webster  stopped  only  long  enough  to  turn 
toward  the  man,  and  bend  upon  him  his  most  awful 
scowl.  "  All  slaves  in  England,  do  you  say  ?  pray, 
my  friend,  who  was  your  grandfather  ?  "  It  is  seven- 
teen years  ago,  yet  the  tremendous  power  of  that 
look,  and  that  interrogation,  is  vivid  before  us  now. 
The  man  seemed  literally  to  shrivel  up,  under  that 
fixed,  unswerving  eye.  He  was  extinguished,  be- 
fore Webster  had  fairly  entered  upon  the  eulogy  of 
Magna  Charta,  the  Habeas  Corpus,  the  Trial  by 
Jury,  and  other  liberal  elements  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution, proving,  as  he  said,  that  "  all  the  Liberty 
of  all  the  world,  out  of  America,  is  in  England." 

As  he  never  spoke  without  thorough  preparation, 
so,  when  prepared,  he  never  spoke  without  being 
sure  the  proper  time  was  come ;  not  only  must  he 
have  the  speech  "  fit  to  be  made,"  but  he  must  have 
an  occasion,  fit  for  him  to  make  it.  His  unequalled 
Hayne  Speech,  so  far  as  regards  its  Constitutional 
argument,  had  been  lying  in  his  mind,  rounded  and 
complete,  for  years.  Had  not  the  Hayne  contro- 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  105 

versy  demanded  it,  he  intended  to  have  published  it 
in  a  volume  on  the  United  States  Constitution ;  in 
which  case,  it  never  would  have  been  spoken  at  all. 
For  him  to  play  the  orator,  the  hour  and  the  speech 
must  come  together. 

When,  to  the  infinite  scandal  of  Henry  Clay  and 
the  Whig  party,  he  held  on  to  his  high  office  as 
Secretary  of  State,  under  President  Tyler,  after 
President  Harrison  died,  he  had  a  rare  opportunity 
for  "  chamber  eloquence  "  given  him  by  Clay,  which 
he  entirely  turned  away  from, —  a  rare  opportunity, 
—  for  the  subject  was  very  exciting,  the  assailant  gal- 
lant, and  the  sole  auditor  an  orator  himself  of  the  first 
mark.  The  Secretary  was  sitting  in  the  Speaker's 
room,  one  afternoon,  conversing  with  an  eminent 
New  England  Senator.  Suddenly  the  great  Whig 
Captain  stalked  into  the  room,  his  lofty  height  still 
loftier  from  his  excitement.  He  went  directly  up  to 
Webster,  and  the  auditor  had  the  pleasure  of  be- 
holding, (as  he  has  since  said,)  one  of  the  best  speci- 
mens of  Clay's  eloquent  utterance  and  Webster's 
eloquent  silence.  The  veteran  chieftain  actually  lec- 
tured the  Massachusetts  demigod,  upon  his  tenaci- 
ty of  office  ;  which,  under  the  circumstances,  he  pro- 
nounced deplorable.  He  painted  to  him,  in  a  few 
pathetic  words,  the  disasters  to  the  common  cause 
it  would  involve;  and  finally,  almost  imperatorially, 
he  adjured  him  to  "  resign."  To  all  this  impassioned 
appeal  from  the  allied  champion  of  his  ancient  party, 
Webster  listened,  with  respectful  attention  ;  but 


106  CONGRESS. 

neither  during  its  progress,  nor  at  its  close,  did  he 
reply — one  single  word.  He  could  have  answered 
in  words  which  should  have  contained  the  gist  of  his 
whole  subsequent  Faneuil-Hall  defence  of  his  ac- 
tion ;  but  he  thought  the  hour  had  not  yet  come,  and 
he  was  silent.  It  was  Nestor  patient  before  Achilles. 

After  a  few  commonplaces  on  other  things,  ex- 
changed between  them  as  gentlemen,  Clay  opened 
the  door  and  went  out.  As  it  closed  behind  him, 
Webster  changed  his  heavy  attitude,  as  if  relieved  ; 
and,  lifting  his  shaggy  eyebrows,  gave  a  look  of 
ominous  significance  to  his  hardly  less  celebrated 
friend,  who  had  watched  him  with  engrossing  aston- 
ishment. 

His  form  of  oratoric  composition,  his  words,  his 
phrases,  are  so  individual,  that  it  has  given  a  distinct 
name  to  a  style,  and  the  rhetoric  of  this  age  must 
recognize  the  distinct  species  named  by  the  name  of 
the  Websterian  style.  He  was  not  what  would  be 
understood  by  the  term,  a  Rhetorician.  Yet,  he  had 
thoughtfully  meditated  upon  rhetoric,  and  in  one  of 
his  published  letters  speaks  of  its  importance,  and  of 
the  attention  he  had  given  to  it.  But  he  never  at- 
tained to  "  rhetoric  in  its  finest  and  most  absolute 
burnish."  He  never,  indeed,  labored  after  the  afflu- 
ence of  thought,  and  the  flowing  graces  of  speech  ; 
that  copiousness  which  sometimes  expresses  great 
wit,  and  sometimes  covers  little  wit.  Rufus  Choate's 
composition  is  rich  with  the  spoil  of  literature,  — 
opima  spolia;  each  sentence  is  the  gateway  to  an 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  107 

avenue  of  literary  treasures,  each  adjective  is  sug- 
gestive of  years  of  fond  research.  But  Webster's  is 
the  counterpart  of  this.  He  says  what  he  means, 
and  says  but  little  more.  When  the  Boston  Alder- 
men refused  "  to  grant  Faneuil  Hall  for  Daniel  Web- 
ster to  speak  in,"  it  of  course  roused  great  popular 
indignation.  Afterwards,  the  order  of  denial  was 
revoked,  and  the  manner  in  which  Webster  and 
Choate  severally  alluded  to  it,  on  their  first  subse- 
quent appearance  in  the  Hall,  was  very  charac- 
teristic of  their  separate  styles.  "  This,"  said  Web- 
ster, waving  his  hand,  and  casting  his  proud  glance 
around  its  ample  space,  "  this  is  Faneuil  Hall  — 
open ! "  He  used  no  epithet  or  adjective.  That  one 


108  CONGRESS. 

remorseless  severity  which  bystanders  reported  at  the 
time,  which  never  appeared  in  print.  "  Sir,"  said 
Webster,  in  words  jarringly  grumbled  forth,  like  the 
rumbling  of  chariot  wheels,  "  the  Senator  said  he 
should  carry  the  war  into  Africa  —  if  God  gave  him 
the  power.  But  Sir,"  glowering  down  upon  Hayne, 
with  the  look  of  Agamemnon  upon  Hector,  "God 
has  not  given  him  the  power.  /  put  it  to  the  gen- 
tleman, God  has  not  given  him  the  power"  But 
leaving  out  such  a  passage  of  petrific  energy  as  this, 
was  over-solicitude  for  the  world's  permanent  and 
cool  estimate  of  what  he  knew  to  be  his  master- 
piece of  oratory.  Ordinarily  you  saw  no  hand  of 
the  Cabinet  artist's  tooling,  in  his  finish.  Nor  were 
his  best  thoughts  propped  aloft  on  the  pagoda  struc- 
ture of  cunning  oratorio  mechanism,  —  the  gaudy 
building  of  a  Chinese  tower,  pretentious  and  bedi- 
zened. His  figurings  and  mouldings  were  large  and 
rough,  but  proportioned  with  a  breadth  and  solidity, 
like  the  carvings  of  Egypt.  He  was  an  architect  of 
colossal  outlines  and  permanent  forms.  They  rose 
upon  the  mind  with  the  unrelieved  grandeur  of  the 
Pyramids,  inspiring  awe  and  silence.  Upon  the 
back  of  the  volumes  of  his  Speeches,  first  issued 
some  years  ago,  was  gilded  an  apt  emblem,  —  the 
spreading  front  of  the  American  Capitol. 

His  language  is  a  model  of  exactness,  clearness, 
and  idiomatic  strength,  with  a  sort  of  flavor  of 
beauty  floating  about  it.  No  orator  ever  opened 
his  mouth  in  Europe  or  America,  who  spoke  better 


DANIEL  WEBSTER. 

or  more  exact  English.  If  he  could  not  get  the 
very  word  he  wanted,  he  would  pause  till  it  came  to 
him.  We  saw  him  once  quite  puzzled  to  express 
just  what  he  meant  and  no  more.  It  was  a  jury 
trial.  He  was  closing  on  Choate,  who  had  been,  as 
usual,  dazzling  and  cogent  by  turns.  Referring  to 
Choate's  argument,  he  wished  to  characterize  it  by 
some  term  which  should  convey  no  slight,  or  any 
misapprehension  of  its  real  force,  but  yet  should 
not  seem  to  concede  to  it,  in  presence  of  the  jury, 
any  dangerous  power.  "  My  brother  Choate,  gentle- 
men of  the  jury,"  said  he,  "  has  addressed  you  in  his 

very "  —  here  he  paused  and  floundered  a  little, 

but  in  a  moment  or  two  he  hit  on  the  very  word  he 
wanted,  and  plunged  at  it  — "  in  his  very  attractive 
manner,  and  I  hope,"  &c.  No  better  word  could 
have  been  found  to  say  definitely  just  as  much  and 
no  more  than  he  then  meant  to  concede.  For  he 
meant  to  praise,  and  could  not  have  done  otherwise ; 
for,  in  his  argument,  Choate  had  paid  him  a  singu- 
larly tasteful  compliment.  Two  books  on  Patent 
law  had  been  referred  to  in  the  evidence,  both  writ- 
ten by  men  of  the  same  name  with  each  other  and 
with  him  —  Webster.  For  distinction's  sake,  the 
smaller  of  these  two  books  went  by  the  name  of 
"  The  little  Webster."  Having  to  refer  to  the 
smaller  one,  Choate  said  to  the  Judge,  "  I  am  read- 
ing now,  may  it  please  your  Honor,  from  the  little 
Webster  " ;  then  he  looked  round,  with  a  slight  in- 
clination of  his  head  to  the  great  Daniel,  whose 
10 


110  CONGRESS. 

huge  eyes  were  staring  into  his,  —  "  '  the  little  Web- 
ster,' as  if  there  could  be  such  a  thing!"  The  tone 
added  point  to  the  elegant  Choatism,  if  we  may 
coin  the  word.  Remembering  this,  it  is  apparent  at 
once,  how  felicitous  was  Webster's  replying  epithet, 
his  "  attractive  "  manner. 

The  Saxon  element  of  vigor  in  our  tongue,  he 
especially  affected  ;  plain,  terse,  and  homely  phrases, 
breaking  their  way  into  the  apprehension  and  lodg- 
ing themselves  there.  The  foreign  elements  of  the 
language,  the  Greek  derivatives,  the  sesquipedalian 
Latinisms  he  found  too  expressive  of  abstractions, 
and  too  roundabout  in  their  conveyance  of  ideas 
for  his  hard-hitting  directness.  Doubtless  these  ele- 
ments enrich  our  tongue,  but  they  are  more  valuable 
to  the  man  of  teeming  and  multiform  notions,  than 
to  the  man  of  not  so  many,  but  of  greater  concep- 
tions. Poetry  and  metaphysics  could  hardly  get 
on  without  them,  but  plain  common-sense,  which 
knows  exactly  what  it  wants  to  say.  can  dispense 
with  them.  Notwithstanding  all  the  riches,  foreign 
and  native  of  our  language,  however,  there  still  are 
many  beautiful  and  complex  ideas  and  feelings  in 
men's  natures,  which  never  see  the  daylight  of  ex- 
pression,—  which  men  cannot  express,  even  ever  so 
remotely.  But  hardly  any  man  suffered  less  in  this 
way  than  Webster.  He  thought  so  strongly  when 
he  thought  at  all,  and  in  such  well-defined  courses, 
that  each  great  thought  stood  out  on  the  plane  of  his 
expression,  as  the  moon  and  stars  stand  out  on  the 
dark  background  of  the  sky. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  Ill 

To  attain  verbal  expression  of  this  sort,  clear, 
strong  Saxon,  homely  and  pat  to  the  purpose,  he 
had  made  the  effort  of  his  life.  He  was  accus- 
tomed to  say,  "  I  never  use  a  long  word  when  I 
can  find  a  short  one."  An  instance  in  point  was 
his  written  speech  about  the  Empire  of  Austria, 
when  he  told  the  Emperor,  through  his  Envoy,  that 
in  comparison  with  the  broad  area  of  free  America, 
the  area  of  his  Empire  was  but  "  a  patch  "  on  the 
earth's  surface.  A  little  incident  is  still  remembered 
in  Albany,  which  illustrated  the  power  of  a  single 
word  in  his  art  of  composition,  and  the  prompt- 
ness with  which  his  mind  would  oftentimes  respond, 
when  vigorously  challenged.  The  ladies  of  that 
city  were  holding  a  Horticultural  Fair,  upon  some 
national  and  patriotic  day,  we  do  not  remember 
exactly  what.  But  the  Fair  was  as  it  were  presided 
over  by  a  large  portrait  of  John  Hancock,  which  was 
hung  in  plain  sight  at  the  upper  end  of  the  Hall. 
The  ladies,  beautiful  in  silks  and  smiles,  floated 
about  the  flowers,  which  garlanded  and  scented  the 
aisles,  like  daughters  of  the  sun.  Mr.  Webster,  in 
passing  through  the  city,  had  been  induced  to  look 
in  upon  them,  and,  in  lounging  around,  found  him- 
self, to  his  astonishment,  beset  by  the  fair  army, 
for  a  sentiment.  Nothing  daunted,  he  instantly 
mounted  a  chair,  and  pointing  to  the  festooned 
portrait,  at  the  head  of  the  Hall,  he  said,  "  I  give 
you,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  the  name  of  John 
Hancock,  —  a  name  fragrant  with  Revolutionary 


112  CONGRESS. 

memories."  The  subject  of  the  sentiment  tallied 
with  the  hour;  and  the  flowery  adjective  was  not 
only  beautifully  applied,  but  exactly  hit  the  floral 
character  of  the  spectacle  before  him.  It  seemed 
absolutely  perfumed  with  the  breath  of  the  place 
and  the  time. 

The  words  of  Shakespeare  and  the  English  Bible 
were  his  special  study.  As  Demosthenes  transcribed 
Thucydides  six  times,  and  Chatham,  centuries  after, 
translated  the  speeches  in  Thucydides  for  the  Eng- 
lish edition  of  that  work,  so  he  labored  daily  over 
these  authors.  His  College  classics,  especially  the 
Latin,  he  never  forgot,  though  he  never  sedulously 
followed  them  up.  In  youth  he  translated  Horace 
copiously  in  writing  ;  and  in  his  meridian  career,  he 
remarked  to  the  writer,  that  he  had  taken  pains  to 
keep  upon  his  table  a  copy  of  Caesar,  Virgil,  Livy, 
and  the  translation  of  Homer.  He  always  regret- 
ted his  Greek,  and  especially  deplored  his  inabili- 
ty thoroughly  to  comprehend  Demosthenes  in  the 
original.  He  had  a  taste  for  books,  but  he  had  a 
stronger  taste  for  coarser  recreations,  and  he  had 
not  time  for  both.  Literature  never  became  to  him, 
as  it  was  to  Chatham,  Burke,  and  Canning,  a  con- 
stant resort  for  recreation.  Of  the  republic  of  letters, 
he  was  rather  a  visitor  than  a  citizen.  It  is  true, 
that  in  some  few  well  prepared  disquisitions,  he 
astonished  the  uninitiated  public  by  surprising  evi- 
dences of  breadth  of  scholarship  and  illustration ; 
but  many  inferior  minds  grubbed  and  garnered  for 


DANIEL   WEBSTER.  113 

him  for  such  displays.  Such  occasions,  for  instance, 
as  his  address  to  the  New  York  Historical  Society, 
and  his  celebrated  argument  in  defence  of  Christian- 
ity in  the  Girard  Will  case. 

His  own  original  combinations  of  common  words, 
his  peculiar  Websterian  phrases,  are  immortal.  No 
Gothic  language  has  ever  been  pounded  into  more 
compact  cannon-ball  sentences  ;  phrases,  as  he  said 
of  the  name  of  John  Adams,  such  as  "all  nations 
shall  see,  and  all  time  shall  not  efface."  While  the 
land's  language  lasts  and  the  Republic  stands,  they 
stand ;  and  so  instinct  with  the  character  and  ma- 
jesty of  America  are  they,  that  the  first  thing  a 
successful  tyrant  would  do  here,  would  be  to  burn 
up  Webster's  Speeches.  "  Shoulder  to  shoulder, 
South  Carolina  and  Massachusetts  stood  around 
the  administration  of  Washington,  and  felt  his  own 
great  arm  lean  on  them  for  support."  How  fraternal 
the  tie  with  which,  in  a  phrase,  he  thus  links  the  jar- 
ring States,  how  simple  the  grand  image  of  Wash- 
ington's benediction,  as  he  leans  on  their  joint  sup- 
port !  The  style  of  Webster's  composition,  to  be  sure, 
is  heavy,  but  it  is  heavy  with  its  massive  thoughts 
and  its  superb  grandeur.  It  is  a  style  fit  for  the  iron 
pen  of  history  to  write  on  monuments.  His  whole 
manner  in  composition,  it  is  not  to  be  denied,  is  hard, 
but  then  he  wrote  as  it  were  in  letters  of  stone. 

His  oratory  is  singularly  well  preserved  in  print. 
He  gave  what  the  busy  Statesman  owes  to  the  coun- 
try, but  rarely  pays.  He  gave  assiduous  care  that 
10* 


114  CONGRESS. 

his  advice  to  the  country,  his  Speeches,  should  be 
carefully  reported  and  permanently  embodied ;  and 
although  in  the  valedictory  speech  of  his  life,  in 
Faneuil  Hall,  he  disclaimed  the  title  of  a  literary 
man,  yet  he  thus  allied  his  oratory  with  Literature. 
We  remember,  in  1850,  hearing  him  say,  that  he 
had  just  got  out  an  improved  edition  of  his  7th  of 
March  Speech ;  "  for,"  said  he,  "  I  mean,  for  the 
second  time  in  my  life,  to  take  great  pains  to  have 
a  speech  of  mine  read  by  the  people."  The  allusion 
to  the  other  time,  was,  of  course,  to  the  Hayne 
Speech,  and  he  meant  to  imply  that  he  was  now 
taking  unusual  pains  not  only  to  preserve  but  to 
disseminate  these  Speeches.  No  orator  of  modern 
times  has  been  more  critically  preserved  than  he 
is,  in  his  published  Speeches. 

Webster's  ordinary  manner  of  speaking  was  that 
of  a  plain  man,  as  would  be  natural  to  the  expres- 
sion of  so  practical  a  mind.  It  was  strong,  hearty, 
and  downright.  His  gestures  were  the  gestures  of 
enforcing  rather  than  of  describing ;  such  gestures 
as  a  sturdy  New  England  farmer  under  the  shadow 
of  the  White  Hills  would  use  in  dictating  the  till- 
age of  his  stubborn  acres,  or  in  exemplifying  moral 
monitions  to  his  son,  by  pointing  to  those  mountains  ; 
the  open  palm  of  the  hand,  the  pointing  finger,  the 
vigorous  bringing  down  of  the  arm,  the  easy  side- 
wise  wave  of  all  ;  these  were  pretty  much  his 
variety.  We  recollect,  however,  a  gesture  dramati- 
cally expressive,  used  by  him  once,  in  the  Taylor 


DANIEL  WEBSTEK.  115 

campaign  of  1848,  in  speaking  of  the  "  Buffalo  Plat- 
form " ;  a  creed  of  principles  put  forth  by  a  coali- 
tion of  many  parties,  upon  which  Ex- President  Van 
Buren  had  been  nominated.  "  Why,  gentlemen," 
said  Webster,  to  a  gathering  of  sturdy  and  hard- 
featured  people,  "  that  Buffalo  Platform  is  so 
rickety,  it  will  hardly  bear  the  fox-like  tread  of  Mr. 
Van  Buren";  and  as  he  said  "fox-like  tread,"  he 
held  out  the  palm  of  his  left  hand,  and,  with  the 
other  hand,  played  his  fingers  along  his  extended 
arm  down  to  the  hand,  with  a  soft  running  motion, 
as  if  to  represent  the  kitten-like  advance  of  the  foxy 
candidate  upon  his  rickety  "  Platform."  The  an- 
swering shouts  of  laughter  told  that  the  shot  was 
felt. 

He  seemed  in  no  way  bookish  in  speaking.  He 
had  the  broad,  deep-ringing  tone  of  a  son  of  the  soil ; 
a  man  who  loved  broad  acres,  great  cattle,  tall  trees, 
and  true  men.  A  fresh,  hearty,  neighborly  tone 
runs  through  his  sentences.  When  he  spoke  to  the 
people,  it  was  as  neighbors,  fellow-citizens,  friends, 
not  in  the  "  Romans,  Countrymen,  and  Lovers " 
style.  He  spoke,  too,  like  a  thorough-going  Ameri- 
can,—  not  provincial,  but  American.  He  had  no 
touch  of  the  foreigner's  Shibboleth.  When  the  bril- 
liant Irishman,  Grattan,  first  spoke  in  the  British 
Parliament,  his  manner  was  so  violently  odd,  his 
style  so  epigrammatic,  men  said,  "This  is  not  an 
Irishman,  it  is  a  Frenchman."  But  whoever  heard 
Webster  could  not  be  in  doubt  for  a  moment,  that 


116  CONGRESS. 

he  was  listening  to  an  honest  Anglo-Saxon.  His 
plain,  grave  manner,  when  brought  in  contrast  with 
affected  mannerisms,  annihilated  their  effect.  So, 
also,  he  could  even  exaggerate  this  homely  plainness, 
in  order  to  ruin  the  effect  of  true  but  high  rhet- 
oric. In  the  matter  of  Oliver  Smith's  Will,  —  a 
case  well  known  to  the  profession,  —  tried  a  few 
years  ago  in  Massachusetts,  Choate  contested  the 
sanity  of  the  testator.  After  amplifying  with  in- 
finite dexterity  upon  all  the  minutia  which,  in  his 
view,  tended  to  impugn  the  sanity,  he  closed  an 
accumulated  sentence,  which  had  gathered  force  like 
a  rolling  snow-ball  to  its  end,  by  saying  with  the 
most  anxious  and  sorrowing  cadence,  "  No,  gentle- 
men of  the  jury,  the  mind  of  Oliver  Smith  never 
signed  that  paper.  That  mind  was  dead  —  dead  — 
dead."  Each  time  he  repeated  the  word  "  dead " 
with  a  slower  and  sadder  emphasis,  and  it  made  a 
profound  impression.  Here  was  a  chance  for  Web- 
ster's homespun  style.  "  Gentlemen,"  said  he,  in 
reply,  in  his  most  matter-of-fact  manner,  as  if  he 
were  reading  off  a  newspaper,  "  my  brother  Choate 
says,  Oliver  Smith,  at  the  time  he  signed  this  Will, 
was  dead,  dead,  dead,"  repeating  the  word  "  dead  " 
three  times  consecutively  with  the  quickest  and 
most  commonplace  inflection,  "but  I  don't  believe 
it."  The  contrast  between  the  slow,  solemn  Web- 
sterian  manner  in  which  Choate  had  intensified 
each  utterance  of  the  fatal  word,  and  the  harum- 
scarum  manner  in  which  Webster,  copying  exactly 


DANIEL  WEBSTEK.  117 

the  thrice-uttered  word,  seemed  by  so  doing  to  follow 
exactly  the  argument  and  yet  make  it  ridiculous, 
entirely  upset  the  gravity  of  the  house,  and  the  whole 
court-room  roared  in  concert.  Mr.  Choate  bore  it 
like  a  hero,  for  he  was  too  old  a  combatant  and  had 
himself  given  too  many  dreadful  blows  of  ridicule, 
not  to  be  fully  able  to  take  as  well  as  give. 

In  his  dress,  Webster  was  very  critical,  not  in  the 
least  foppish,  like  William  Pinkney,  but  precise  and 
appropriate ;  especially  on  every  public  occasion  of 
his  oratory  he  was  scrupulously  dressed.  Great  as 
he  was,  he  did  not  despise  the  lesser  decencies  of 
social  life.  In  that  matter,  as  in  many  of  his  tastes, 
he  was  very  English.  In  his  later  years  he  generally 
came  down  to  dinner  in  full  dress,  even  to  white 
neck-handkerchief  and  patent  leather ;  and  this  was 
the  case,  whether  there  was  any  guest  present  or  not. 
He  would  leave  the  Senate,  an  hour  or  two  before- 
hand, to  give  himself  leisure  for  this  gentlemanly 
preparation.  The  picture  of  Webster  in  his  reply  to 
Hayne,  which  Healy,  the  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  of 
our  country,  has  painted  in  old  Faneuil  Hall,  pre- 
sents him  in  a  very  unusual  attitude.  He  must 
have  been  indeed  electrified  with  thought  to  have 
assumed  so  melodramatic  an  air.  The  picture,  how- 
ever, may  be  correct,  and  at  any  rate,  the  head  and 
bust  are  fine ;  for  Healy  painted  Webster  as  many 
times  as  if  there  was  but  one  man  in  the  world.  So, 
also,  the  portraits  of  the  Senators  who  sit  around, 
listening  to  the  great  debate,  are  good.  Especially  is 


118  CONGRESS. 

the  pale  face  of  Calhoun,  who  presided,  suggestive 
of  the  character  his  enemies  fastened  on  him,  the 
Catiline  of  the  Republic.  Would  that  we  had  so 
suggestive  a  canvas  or  mosaic  of  Cicero  uplifting 
his  arm  with  his  "  Quousque  tandem,"  and  driving 
out  the  historic  Catiline  from  the  Senate  in  which 
Csesar,  and  Cato,  and  Brutus  were  sitting.  This  full- 
length  Webster  also  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  careful 
dress  and  the  well-known  buff  and  blue  attire,  in 
which  he  loved  to  make  his  greatest  displays. 

Webster,  Calhoun,  Clay,  in  the  American  Sen- 
ate !  How  grand  a  vision  that  was  !  No  spectacle 
of  physical  grandeur  or  splendor,  to  our  eyes,  could 
compare  with  that  scene  of  surpassing  moral  inter- 
est. We  have  spent  whole  hours,  when  nothing  but 
dry  routine  business  was  in  progress  in  the  Sen- 
ate, in  gazing  upon  them  there.  Calhoun  and  Web- 
ster presented,  to  a  student  of  the  Senators,  the 
most  interesting  contrast.  The  one  shadowy,  mys- 
tical, eagerly  peering  forward,  as  if  to  wrest  her 
secret  from  the  future  ;  his  colorless  cheek  blanched 
with  thought,  and  bloodless  with  the  tension  of  his 
mental  struggles ;  his  long  waving  hair  pushed  up 
and  back  from  his  bold  temples,  and  his4  large  spec- 
tral eyes  ever  glaring  bright  and  intently  gazing. 
On  the  other  side,  Webster,  heavy  and  sombre,  with 
his  rich  but  sallow  complexion,  and  deep-set  solemn 
eye,  seeming  when  not  in  action  to  be  revolving  to 
himself  unutterable  things,  and  looking  out  on  life 
only  as  from  the  loopholes  of  his  own  self-sustained 


DANIEL  WEBSTER.  119 

retreat  of  thought.  Calhoun  seemed  as  if  the  thought 
of  life,  and  the  care  that  consumeth  the  beauty  of 
man,  had  eaten  out  the  bloom  and  fulness  of  his 
haggard  cheeks,  and  withered  the  life  of  his  counte- 
nance all  away,  —  all,  save  those  darkly  bright  and 
ghostly  eyes,  whose  orbs,  even  in  conversation,  were 
always  flashing,  always  full  of  lustre.  His  whole 
aspect  was  singular  and  mysteriously  impressive.  It 
was  not  odd  and  sinister  like  Roanoke  Randolph's ; 
it  was  not  imperatorial  like  Henry  Clay's ;  but  it 
was  like  a  prophet  of  the  wilderness,  wild  and  lordly, 
but  somehow  weird-like  and  unearthly.  Webster,  on 
the  contrary,  looked  as  if  time  and  care  had  beaten 
on  him,  but  beaten  vainly,  —  "a  storm-vexed "  but 
defiant  man.  Time  could  not  waste  nor  wear  nor 
write  her  wrinkles  on  that  antique  face,  nor  could 
she  sully  that  firm  brown  color  on  his  stalwart  cheek  : 
the  furrowed  lines  and  the  iron  lip  showed  the  stamp 
of  toil  and  passion ;  but  the  stamp  had  not  hurt  the 
fibre ;  it  had  only  given  the  material  more  value  and 
significance.  Whether  he  walked  among  the  crowds, 
or  sat  at  his  desk  in  the  Senate,  as  we  so  often  saw 
him,  with  the  air  of  a  Grand  Duke  at  his  post  of  duty, 
he  seemed  to  be  himself  retired  ;  as  if  aloof  from  the 
common  world,  behind  those  deep-caverned  eyes 
whose  fires  were  ordinarily  smouldering  and  dull. 
Like  a  sea-girt  castle  safe  on  its  rocks,  while  storms 
lash  the  gates  unnoticed,  so  within  the  solemn  castle 
of  his  massive  brain  he  seemed  to  sit  apart  from  the 
every-day  movement  of  life,  and,  safe  from  its  wear 


120  CONGRESS. 

and  tear,  intrenched  in  his  gloomy  serenity.  Again 
we  say,  what  a  sight  it  was  to  see !  those  three  men 
in  their  seats  in  the  Senate !  That  ivas  a  Senate. 
They  alone  would  have  made  up  a  Senate  fit  for  the 
empire  of  the  world  ;  the  true  Triumvirate  of  the 
Republic,  —  the  triumvirate  of  transcendent  talent. 

*There,  at  their  little  desks,  these  three  great  pow- 
ers used  sit  as  on  their  thrones  ;  and  when  they  were 
sitting  there,  you  felt  as  you  looked  down  from  the 
gallery,  that  the  Senate  was  full,  whoever  else  was 
present  or  whoever  was  away ;  for  around  each  of 
them  his  own  group  of  tributary  Senators  used  to 
gather  and  revolve,  gazing  with  fond  and  reverent 
eyes  ;  and  behind  these  representative  satellites,  it 
needed  no  strained  imagination  to  see  the  national 
constituencies  in  corresponding  divisions,  widening 
and  stretching  back  and  waving  their  hands,  and 
turning  their  eyes  proudly  on  them  from  every  quar- 
ter of  the  land.  When  they  spoke,  America  listened, 
and  when  they  were  thinking,  America  was  still. 

The  friendship  of  a  great  man  is  a  gift  of  the  Gods. 
So  said  the  old  philosopher.  But  the  mere  presence 
and  frequent  nearness  of  a  great  man  is  a  beneficent 
gift.  If  the  dozen  or  twenty  memorable  charac- 
ters who  have  been  strung  along  the  centuries  are 
sources  of  our  ever-renewed  powers  and  our  ever- 
fresh  delight,  what  must  have  been  the  influence  of 
the  daily  sight  and  presence  of  so  much  intellectual 
splendor  as  the  Senate  saw  then  !  To  have  looked 
upon  Julius  Caesar  daily,  and  sometimes  conversed 


FISHER  AMES.  121 

with  him,  we  should  think  would  have  fired  and 
nerved  the  intellect  of  the  least  aspiring  of  the 
Romans ;  and  to  have  lived  in  the  same  age  with 
these  three  great  beings,  and  seen  and  known  them 
face  to  face,  while  it  must  dwarf  any  pigmies  of  the 
present  day  who  should  aspire  to  the  purple  of  their 
honors,  nevertheless  exalts  our  whole  ideal  of  human 
nature,  as  well  as  all  our  standards  of  oratoric  excel- 
lence. 

FISHER    AMES. 

FISHER  AMES  stands  as  prominently  on  the  re- 
mote horizon  of  the  age  of  which  we  treat,  as  Everett 
and  Wendell  Phillips  appear  in  its  foreground. 

He  came  and  spoke  and  wrote  in  the  day  which 
had  listened  to  Washington's  -Farewell  Address,  and 
which  had  not  yet  heard  Henry  Clay  call  again,  "  to 
arms  ! "  It  was  an  interregnum  of  war-leaders.  The 
old  men  had  won  the  Revolution,  and  now  they  want- 
ed  rest.  The  young  men  had  not  yet  come  forward 
to  receive  the  Republic  as  the  legacy  of  the  veterans, 
and  announce  that  its  course  was  but  begun.  It  was 
a  reactionary  day.  The  reaction  of  the  Revolution. 
The  development  of  Republicanism  rather  seemed 
to  hang  fire.  Many  eyes  still  looked  toward  Eng- 
land's model.  Many  hearts  still  murmured  of  Ma- 
jesty. We  had  conquered  the  world's  permission  to 
be,  but  not  our  own.  We  had  not  yet  the  confidence 
of  stability,  nor  the  pride  of  assumed  position.  The 
11 


122  CONGRESS. 

young  race  of  1812,  Calhoun,  Lowndes,  and  Lang- 
don  Cheves,  the  fighting  boys  of  Congress,  as  the 
white-haired  men  thought  them,  had  not  summoned 
the  people  to  the  war  of  honor.  The  terrors  of  Eng- 
land still  frightened  many  whom  her  splendors  had 
not  dazzled.  The  guns  of  "  old  Ironsides  "  had  not 
roared  upon  the  sea  ;  nor  had  Andrew  Jackson  seen 
New  Orleans, —  that  imperial  old  man,  whose  indo- 
mitable greatness  provoked  the  admiration  even  of 
Daniel  Webster.  He  had  not  yet  given  the  new 
start  to  Democracy,  by  inaugurating  the  new  poli- 
cies and  new  men  whose  combination  American 
history  classifies  under  his  name  —  Jacksonism.  His 
full  heart  had  not  yet  charged  the  veins  of  his  coun- 
try with  its  own  lion  blood. 

Everybody  in  Fisher  Ames's  day  thought  that 
our  first  Revolution  was  our  last  battle-triumph. 
They  did  not  yet  understand  that  the  Republic  must 
"  organize  Victory,  and  render  her  permanent."  Con- 
sequently, Ames  speaks  with  the  port  and  the  lan- 
guage of  a  hero ;  but  it  is  the  hero  taking  off'  his 
armor,  not  putting  it  on.  He  is  the  Conservative  of 
the  Revolution.  He  would  regard  its  results  as 
sacred.  He  would  risk  nothing  to  add  to  them.  He 
shook  all  over  with  horror,  as  he  viewed  the  red  lines 
of  the  insurgent  Democracy  of  France:  He  regarded 
their  course  as  an  apostasy  from  true  Liberty  ;  and 
he  felt  profoundly  impressed  with  Edmund  Burke's 
denunciation  of  their  codes,  as  u  An  entire  Institute 
and  Digest  of  Anarchy." 


FISHER  AMES.  123 

Accordingly,  as  we  draw  near  to  hear  Ames  speak, 
we  find  ourselves  in  a  different  atmosphere  and  dif- 
ferent scenery  from  that  which  environs  Webster 
and  Clay.  His  speeches  are  in  another  key ;  and 
different  topics  and  different  words  appear  in  them. 
Not  tariffs  and  banks  and  executive  audacity,  but 
Federal  dignity  and  insidious  France  are  the  terms 
which  ring  in  our  ears. 

Different  men,  too,  rise  upon  the  scene  around  him. 
Jackson  was  Clay's  target  of  invective.  Jefferson  is 
his.  It  was  the  age  of  Hamilton  (and  Hamilton 
was  the  friend  of  Ames)  ;  Hamilton,  for  whom 
America  still  repines ;  in  many  points  of  view  the 
greatest  of  her  children;  a  practical  thinker,  forced 
into  oratory  by  his  intellect;  he  had  brains  enough 
for  a  whole  generation  of  men,  orators  and  all  in- 
cluded ;  for  upon  the  whole,  he  was  as  great  a  mind 
as  ever  towered  upon  the  field  of  American  politics. 

We  cannot,  therefore,  describe  Fisher  Ames  as  an 
orator,  with  that  sharpness  and  that  decisive  coloring 
which  would  bring  him  fully  home  to  the  reader's 
apprehension.  The  trumpetings  of  two  generations 
of  men  have  sounded  over  his  bones,  and  so  his  form 
and  character  can  at  best  only  stand  before  us  in 
shadowy  and  vanishing  outline. 

His  biography,  his  singular  distinction  as  an  ora- 
tor, his  more  obvious  traits  of  eloquence,  some  of  the 
instances  of  his  exertions  of  a  strange  power,  the 
tenor  of  his  thoughts,  and  the  tone  of  his  mind  as 
revealed  in  his  printed  speeches, — these  alone  remain 
to  memory  or  to  homage. 


124  CONGRESS. 

Enough  remains,  to  show  us  that  he  was  a  very 
noble  person.  Many  of  the  great  impulses  of  human 
nature  mingled  with  the  forces  which  impelled  the 
action  of  his  life.  Few  little,  and  no  sordid,  feelings 
ever  baffled  those  natural  impulses.  He  was  a  very 
pure  man.  If  ever  a  character  was  radiant  with  a 
daily  beauty,  and  deformed  by  no  coarse  or  vulgar 
passion,  it  was  his.  His  only  passion  was  against 
wrong-doers,  and  against  those  whom  he  deemed  the 
betrayers  of  his  country.  Through  all  his  political 
life,  he  kept  "  the  whiteness  of  his  soul."  In  his  last 
days,  he  saw  his  country  governed  by  counsels  of  a 
character  most  repulsive  to  him ;  but  among  his 
death-bed  words  wrere  these,  —  words  which  express 
the  sum  of  his  life,  and  the  text  of  his  eloquence  : 
"  The  Union  must  be  preserved.  Things  are  bad 
enough,  but  anything  is  better  than  dissolution." 

Briefly  now  let  us  outline  and  sketch  the  early 
education  and  subsequent  training  of  the  man,  the 
foundation  of  his  oratory,  and  the  primitive  rock  on 
which  rested  the  whole  superstructure  of  his  capaci- 
ties and  performances. 

He  was  born  in  Dedham,  of  a  family  very  long 
settled  in  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  on  the 
ninth  day  of  April,  1758.  He  was  the  youngest 
child  of  his  mother,  and  she  was  a  widow.  She  was 
in  narrow  circumstances,  but,  with  a  mother's  in- 
stinct, she  early  anticipated  for  her  boy  the  world's 
verdict  of  genius  ;  and  she  resolved  to  struggle 
unflaggingly  to  baffle  Fate  in  his  favor,  and  give 


FISHER  AMES.  125 

him  a  good  education.  While  doing  this,  she  com- 
bined with  it  that  best  education,  the  schooling  of  the 
fireside ;  the  teachings,  pure  and  sweet  and  noble, 
of  a  mother's  ambition  and  a  mother's  love.  When 
he  was  six  years  old,  she  sent  him  to  the  little  Ded- 
ham  town-school,  and  such  was  the  uncommon  for- 
wardness of  the  precocious  boy,  that  he  began,  at 
this  almost  infantile  period,  to  study  Latin  ;  the  min- 
ister of  the  parish,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Haven,  hearing  him 
say  his  lessons  when  they  were  too  hard  or  too  ab- 
struse for  the  village  pedagogue.  Thus,  at  home 
with  his  mother,  and  in  school  with  the  master,  and 
at  meeting  on  Sundays  with  the  minister,  he  went 
quietly  along,  till,  at  the  unusually  early  age  of 
twelve,  he  was  able  to  enter  Harvard  College,  —  an 
example  to  which  Edward  Everett  alone,  of  our 
living  orators,  has  given  a  parallel.  Here  he  passed 
the  ordinary  routine  of  College  studies,  in  good 
standing,  until  when  graduated  he  was  forced  to 
resort  to  school-teaching,  to  help  himself  and  his  fond 
mother.  When  he  was  about  twenty-three,  having 
meantime  studied  law  in  the  office  of  William  Tu- 
dor of  Boston,  he  opened  an  office  for  himself,  in 
Dedham,  Massachusetts,  and  with  fear  and  trem- 
bling sat  waiting  at  the  world's  gate  for  clients. 
He  did  not,  however,  languish  long  in  the  outer 
darkness  of  neglect ;  for  by  his  writings,  and  by  his 
speaking  to  juries  and  audiences,  he  soon  became  a 
shining  man  ;  and  in  eight  short  years,  we  find  him 
in  the  new-born  Congress  of  America,  the  first 
11* 


126  CONGRESS. 

representative  ever  sent  from  the  Suffolk  District  of 
Boston.  In  that  election,  old 'Samuel  Adams  him- 
self was  the  candidate  against  him.  And  there  we 
see  him,  as  might  have  been  expected,  sustaining 
with  both  hands  and  all  his  heart  the  administration 
of  Washington,  during  his  eight  years'  term  of  the 
Presidency.  He  was  too  great  in  soul  to  be  gan- 
grened in  mind  by  State  jealousies. 

Such,  then,  were  the  simple  sources  of  his  train- 
ing. A  plain  New  England  institution ;  the  school, 
the  meeting-house,  the  family,  —  the  three  basement 
pillars  of  the  American  Republic.  For  if  the  invisi- 
ble architecture  of  this  Republican  fabric  of  ours,  in 
all  its  colossal  framework  could  once  be  seen,  under 
the  adamantine  corner-stone,  we  could  not  fail  to 
find  lying  there,  bedded  in  immortal  masonry,  —  the 
New  England  Primer  and  the  Family  Bible.  But 
under  these  precious,  though  simple  influences,  drop- 
ping ever  upon  him  like  the  gentle  dews,  his  soul 
and  nature  seemed  to  grow  up  as  from  seeds  of  orig- 
inal goodness,  in  a  spontaneous  soil.  For  his  mind, 
naturally  capacious  and  receptive,  and  his  fancy 
originally  lively  and  fruitful,  had  been  cultivated,  in 
these  various  simple  spheres  through  which  he  had 
passed,  by  a  constant  instruction  of  his  own,  as  well 
as  of  his  teachers.  During  all  this  time,  he  was 
assiduously  employing  his  leisure  in  reading,  and  in 
storing  his  mind  and  fancy  with  noble  and  graceful 
images  and  sentiments  and  instructive  facts.  Often 
in  after  life  he  was  heard  to  declare,  that  during  this 


FISHER  AMES.  127 

time  he  read  with  enthusiasm  almost  every  author 
whom  he  could  get  hold  of.  History,  especially 
English  history,  he  studied  almost  constantly  and 
mastered  beyond  most  men,  without  any  dazzling 
Macaulay  to  make  it  easy.  Moral  philosophy  also 
and  ethics,  the  science  of  the  right  and  the  wrong,  he 
profoundly  explored.  But  Herodotus,  the  father  of 
history,  Thucydides,  its  great  master,  and  the  pic- 
tured pages  of  Livy,  combined  with  the  modern 
writers  on  the  days  of  Greece  and  Rome,  he  ever 
read  and  re-read.  And  with  graver  themes,  he  fused 
in  the  graceful  and  warmer  tissues  of  the  poet's 
weaving.  The  poetry  of  modern  times  and  of 
ancient  times  and  of  all  times,  he  devoutly  admired. 
In  Homer,  he  read  about  the  splendid  and  swift- 
footed  Achilles,  and  the  whole  stately  tragedy  of 
Troy.  In  Virgil,  the  ideal  and  mythic  view  of  the 
founding  of  the  Roman  Republic  unfurled  its  ban- 
nered pages  to  his  enraptured  eye ;  and  thus,  from 
all  her  urns  of  gold,  poetry  gave  him  to  choose 
selectest  stores,  to  gild  and  color  his  rhetoric.  More- 
over, superadded  to  profane  poetry  and  history,  he 
steadily  read  and  loved  the  volumes  of  the  Scripture 
writings.  He  thought  them  not  merely  a  moral  code, 
but  a  display  in  their  poetical  parts  of  all  that  is  sub- 
lime and  affecting  in  composition.  From  these 
staples,  on  which  his  mind  was  nourished,  it  took 
its  flowery  coloring ;  even  as  the  insect  cochineal 
grows  gradually  bright  and  blushes  into  color,  from 
the  scarlet  blossoms  upon  which  it  feeds.  He  fixed  in 


128  CONGRESS. 

his  memory  whole  passages  of  marked  beauty  from 
fine  English  poems  ;  and  many  purifying  and  glowing 
pages  of  the  Latin  JBneid  were  at  his  complete  com- 
mand ;  all  combining  to  supply  a  vast  fund  of  mate- 
rial for  imagery  and  allusion  in  speaking,  —  a  sort 
of  standing  scenery,  for  the  play  of  his  mind  on  every 
theme ;  a  world  of  ideas,  expanding  his  mind,  and 
giving  him  to  approach  his  subject  in  a  variety  of 
ways,  and  scrutinize  and  describe  it  in  a  variety  of 
lights.  But  more  particularly  during  this  youthful 
novitiate,  he  specifically  cultivated  the  gift  of  oratory. 
It  was  very  early  observed  in  his  College  course, 
that  he  coveted  and  aimed  for  the  glory  of  eloquence. 
Other  bays  he  might  or  might  not  win,  but  that  laurel 
he  must  gain  and  bind  upon  his  brow.  Accordingly 
he  entered  with  enthusiasm  into  the  mimic  contests 
of  the  Debating  Society  of  College,  and  was  at  once 
remarkable  for  the  appropriate  energy  with  which 
he  delivered  those  impassioned  passages  which  his 
genius  led  him  to  pick  out  for  declamation.  And 
ere  he  left  Cambridge  Common  he  had  given  un- 
mistakable evidences  of  possessing  not  only  the 
taste  but  a  capacity  for  public  discourse,  which  one 
day  should  fascinate  and  conquer  the  people. 

Added  to  these  teachings  of  his  own  and  his 
tutors,  he  had  the  immense  benefit  of  free  observa- 
tion of,  and  conversation  with,  the  leading  men  in 
those  Revolutionary  days.  The  Revolution,  with  its 
heroes  and  its  deeds,  was  passing  its  mighty  scenery 
before  his  eyes  when  he  first  stepped  out  into  life. 


FISHER  AMES.  129 

Between  the  time  of  his  opening  a  lawyer's  office 
and  his  election  to  Congress,  he  was  a  member  of 
the  State  Convention,  which  met  at  Concord  to  con- 
sider the  State  currency,  more  sadly  depreciated  by 
the  war  than  ours  by  a  thousand  Bank  failures  ;  he 
was  a  member  of  the  General  Court,  which  then  as 
now  met  at  Boston,  and  he  was  a  prominent  mem- 
ber of  the  Massachusetts  Convention,  which,  by  so 
small  and  hesitating  a  majority,  ratified  and  adopted 
our  Federal  Constitution.  That  ratification  his  far- 
seeing  wisdom  led  him  to  press  earnestly  upon  Mas- 
sachusetts, in  opposition  even  to  the  idol  of  the 
people  who  lived  in  the  old  stone  mansion  upon 
Beacon  Hill,  John  Hancock.  Here  he  gathered  by 
these  experiences  new  knowledge  and  powers.  For 
no  true  man  could  converse  intimately  with  a  gen- 
eration like  that,  —  the  creative  age  of  a  noble 
nationality,  just  quickening  and  heaving  with  a 
new  life,  —  without  feeling  that  the  spirit  of  the  hour 
stretched  and  swelled  all  his  faculties,  and  warmed 
his  whole  heart. 

Such,  then,  were  the  elements  which  formed  the 
bases  of  his  oratoric  powers,  —  they  were  the  fuel, 
the  logs.  But  we  want  something  more  than  fuel 
to  make  a  fire.  We  want  something  more  than 
wealth  of  mind  to  make  an  Orator ;  true  eloquence 
is  not  wealth  of  mind,  nor  warmth  of  heart,  nor  an 
incorruptible  virtue.  Aristotle  was  wealthy-minded, 
Howard  was  warm-hearted,  Cato  was  virtuous, — 
but  none  of  these  were  Orators;  these  qualities 


130  CONGRESS. 

are  its  material;  but,  like  the  Priests  of  Baal,  the 
aspirant  may  set  the  material,  the  dry  wood  in  order, 
and  call  on  his  Gods  to  kindle  the  pile,  unless  his 
Genius  holds  the  Promethean  spark  no  fire  will  fall, 
no  lightning  from  the  sky  will  strike  to  yield  a  con- 
flagration. What  Mr.  Webster  said  in  his  eulogy 
on  Adams  and  Jefferson,  is  not  threadbare  by  repe- 
tition. "  True  eloquence  must  exist  in  the  man,  — 
genius  and  learning  may  toil  for  it  in  vain ;  it  comes, 
if  it  come  at  all,  like  the  outbreak  of  a  fountain 
from  the  earth,  like  the  bursting  forth  of  volcanic 
fires."  This  "  true  eloquence,"  the  sensibility  "  in 
the  man,"  often  reveals  itself  very  much  in  advance 
of  educational  development.  The  great  actor  whom 
Buonapare  loved,  Talma,  showed  his  inborn  power 
when  he  was  a  boy  nine  years  old  at  school.  He, 
with  the  other  boys,  was  playing  a  part  in  a  little 
tragedy  called  "Tamerlane,"  composed  by  the  master 
for  their  amusement,  to  an  audience  of  the  friends  of 
the  school.  Talma,  to  their  astonishment,  thrilled 
them  with  horror  as  they  listened  to  his  tragic  tones. 
After  the  play,  the  rest  of  the  holiday  actors  scat- 
tered to  their  fun.  He,  being  missed,  was  found  at 
last,  alone  in  the  little  dressing-room,  wrapped  up  in 
the  tragic  mantle  of  his  mimic  character,  sobbing 
violently  with  his  emotions.  A  violent  fever  was 
the  end  of  this  precocious  and  sudden  outburst  of 
Talma's  passionate  power. 

This  native  endowment,  the  choice  gift  of  a  rare 
genius  only,  Fisher  Ames  had.     A  bright  and  bum- 


FISHER   AMES.  131 

ing  sensibility  was  mingled  in  his  blood  from  the 
first  beat  of  his  pulse.  Such,  then,  was  the  grand 
total  of  his  natural  and  admired  endowments  and 
equipments  for  oratory.  And  upon  this  basis,  he 
built  up  an  eloquence,  imaginative  and  pathetic, 
correct  and  learned,  splendidly  metaphorical,  and 
commanding  tears  and  applaudings  as  its  ready 
servitors. 

But  we  must  examine  that  eloquence  somewhat 
critically,  and  take  it  to  pieces  if  we  would  ana- 
lyze its  secret  powers.  Genuine  eloquence,  in- 
spired by  the  real  muse  of  spoken  raptures,  is  of 
various  kinds.  Sometimes  it  is  like  the  rapid  bolts 
of  the  clouds,  menacing  and  uplifting ;  sometimes  it 
is  the  still  small  voice,  whispering  low  and  lulling 
the  heart  to  not  unwelcome  tears.  Henry,  Lord 
Brougham  is  a  great  orator,  and  Edward  Everett 
is  a  great  orator,  but  the  tones  of  the  one  trample 
forth  in  impetuous  and  irresistible  array,  like  the  live 
thunder  leaping  among  rattling  crags ;  the  tones 
of  the  other  flow  on  like  magic  music,  floating  into 
the  chambers  of  the  mind,  like  the  breathings  of 
mellow  flutes,  dropping  on  the  listening  ear  like 
snow  upon  the  sea.  And  this  leads  to  a  notice  of 
the  two  classes  of  fine  speakers,  with  whose  lead- 
ing differences  we  are  at  once  struck,  upon  the  most 
hasty  glance  at  the  various  schools  and  specimens  of 
eloquence.  Other  and  manifold  subdivisions  and 
classifications  of  speakers  doubtless  there  are,  as 
one  star  djfFereth  from  another  in  glory,  but  the 


CONGRESS. 

broadest  generalization  into  which,  on  one  side  or 
the  other,  all  fall,  is  undoubtedly  that  of  orators  and 
rhetoricians;  speakers  by  Nature,  and  speakers  by 
Art.  Of  both  these  classes,  Fisher  Ames  possessed, 
in  a  wonderful  degree,  some  of  the  most  peculiar 
and  triumphant  qualities. 

With  the  rhetoricians,  art  is  not  the  handmaid 
of  their  genius ;  it  is  the  strong  right  arm  of  their 
power.  Their  minds  are  richly  charged  and  beauti- 
fully cultivated.  Many  trim  gardens  of  fancy  have 
been  rifled  for  the  gay  uniform  of  their  thoughts. 
The  ordering  and  marshalling  of  their  glittering 
phalanx  has  been  anxiously  practised,  and  often 
drawn  out  effectively  in  line  of  battle,  as  well  as 
showily  on  parade.  Their  tones  are  nicely  trained 
to  musical  modulation,  and  their  words  are  ele- 
gantly balanced.  Generally,  they  are  fine  writers 
as  well  as  attractive  speakers.  Their  temperaments 
are  usually  calm  when  not  in  action,  but  capable  of 
much  excitement  when  spurred  and  roused.  They 
have  the  Promethean  gift,  but  in  a  moderate  degree. 
George  Canning,  the  Prime  Minister  of  England, 
and  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan,  her  prime  wit,  were 
sparkling  specimens  of  this  school.  And  in  our  own 
country,  we  may  try  to  weave  one  leaf  in  the  chaplet 
not  long  ago  laid  on  a  new  made  grave,  by  rank- 
ing Tristam  Burgess,  "  The  Bald  Eagle  of  Rhode 
Island "  as  John  Randolph  called  him,  among  the 
foremost  of  these  brilliant  files.  When  these  men 
speak,  the  genial  tides  of  feeling  gently  flow  and 


FISHER  AMES.  133 

gracefully  mantle  in  their  check,  and  our  eyes  rest 
satisfied  on  their  appropriate  action,  while  our  ears 
are  filled  with  their  balanced  sentences.  But  not  so 
does  the  true  orator  speak.  Not  so  does  a  Seer 
ejaculate  and  throw  off  the  burden  of  his  soul. 
When  he  utters  his  oracles,  a  heaving  tide  of  passion 
in  volume  like  the  Amazon,  seems  to  flood  his  soul. 
He  may  have  previously  thought  out  ideas  and 
words,  but  if  so,  they  now  assume  new  colors  in  his 
flaming  mind ;  the  intellectual  conceptions  are  all 
born  again,  and  spring  forth  into  newness  of  life 
like  an  instantaneous  birth ;  and  as  that  swelling 
stream  pours  on,  the  blood  mounts  glistening  in  his 
face  and  gushing  on  his  brain ;  the  tones  come 
wildly  and  thrillingly,  as  though  the  trumpet-stop 
of  a  grand  organ  were  opened  and  the  hand  of  a 
wizard  coursed  along  its  keys,  —  a  storm  is  up  within 
him,  and  voice,  eye,  action  all  speak  his  exulting 
passion.  At  that  moment,  he  has  no  thought  of  set 
sentences  or  culled  thoughts.  He  is  raving  in  his 
inspiration ;  and  the  Sibylline  frenzy  will  hardly  let 
him  think  at  all,  —  he  can  only  feel. 

Lord  Chatham  said  he  did  not  dare  to  speak  with 
a  state  secret  lurking  in  his  mind,  for,  in  the  rush 
and  Bacchic  riot  of  his  feelings,  he  knew  not  what 
he  said.  Cicero,  in  his  Letters,  tells  us  that  in  his 
earlier  efforts,  the  tremendous  vehemence  to  which 
his  intense  passion  urged  him,  absolutely  shattered 
his  constitution;  and  of  that  dramatic  enchantress, 
Mrs.  Siddons,  John  Kemble  her  brother,  is  related  to 
12 


134  CONGRESS. 

have  said,  that  in  one  of  her  grand  movements  of 
queen-like  oratory,  her  sweeping  gait  and  menacing 
mien  so  spoke  the  goddess,  —  she  struck  him  dumb, 
his  voice  stuck  in  his  throat.  He  stood  upon  the 
stage,  speechless  before  her.  With  the  rhetoricians 
we  are  charmed,  but  by  the  orators  we  are  com- 
manded. The  former  sometimes  lead  us,  the  latter 
absolutely  sway  us ;  they  have  the  imperial  turn  of 
mind  —  the  art  Napoleon  —  and  they  are  kings  of 
hearts. 

Now,  in  both  these  ranks  Fisher  Ames  could 
claim  high  post.  He  was  of  finished  rhetorical 
culture,  and  the  highest  oratorical  fire.  We  hardly 
think  that  the  late  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  whose  fine 
genius  diffused  itself  among  his  auditors  in  persua- 
sive periods  with  all  the  gentle  insinuation  of  am- 
brosia evaporating  in  an  open  vase,  was  more 
finished  in  his  periods  or  rhythmical  in  their  flow. 
And  we  feel  sure  that  the  pathetic  fire  of  Henry 
Clay,  under  whose  influence  we  have  seen  his  face 
illumined  in  a  sort  of  oratorial  sunshine,  never  sur- 
passed the  transcendent  pathos  of  passion  of  at  least 
that  one  memorable  effort  of  Fisher  Ames  on  the 
British  Treaty,  at  the  conclusion  of  which  an  Ameri- 
can House  of  Representatives  voted  instantly  to  ad- 
journ, that  they  might  be  able  to  think  and  to  decide, 
when  the  tones  of  the  magician  were  no  longer  on 
their  ears.  An  old  man,  afterward  a  Judge  in  Maine, 
told  a  friend  recently,  that  he  heard  that  speech. 
He  said  he  "  did  n't  know  much  or  care  much  for 


FISHER  AMES.  135 

eloquent  periods,"  but,  when  Ames  touched  on  the 
border  war,  "  I  shuddered  and  looked  a  little  behind 
me;  for  I  fancied  a  big  Indian  with  an  uplifted 
tomahawk  over  me."  Neither  Mr.  Clay  nor  Mr. 
Otis  possessed  each  other's  peculiar  elements  of  de- 
clamatory power,  but  Ames  wielded  some  of  both. 
It  used  to  be  said  of  Mr.  Clay,  that  he  never  spoke 
ten  sentences  together  in  his  life  which,  as  a  mere 
composition,  would  be  worthy  to  be  read ;  while  he 
never  uttered  ten  words  which  did  not  arrest  and  fix 
the  ear.  Of  Mr.  Ames,  it  might  be  safely  asserted, 
that  his  productions  gave  almost  equal  gratification, 
to  be  read  or  to  be  heard,  by  the  fireside  or  in 
the  forum.  His  flowers  of  rhetoric  would  bear 
transplanting  from  the  heated  atmosphere  of  the 
public  assembly  to  the  sweeter  air  of  the  lonely 
study,  to  the  serener  heaven  of  the  quiet  home.  It 
was  due  in  a  large  measure,  doubtless,  to  the  culti- 
vation of  his  style  as  a  writer,  that  his  spoken 
sentences  were  so  complete  and  mellifluous.  Often 
turn  the  pen,  often  compose  pen  in  hand,  often  com- 
pare, often  correct,  is  the  inculcation  of  the  master 
of  the  forensic  art.  And  although  Ames  did  not 
usually  pre-write  his  speeches,  yet  he  regularly 
wrote  and  composed  something,  and  the  habits  of 
mind  thus  formed  ran  into  his  speeches.  It  was 
also  a  consequence  of  these  habits  of  careful  com- 
position, that  he  was  sententious,  antithetic,  terse, 
and  pointed  in  the  matter  of  his  speeches. 

Not  only  was  his  composition  exact,  it  was  en- 


136  CONGKESS. 

livened  by  the  perpetual  play  of  that  sort  of  minor 
imagination,  or  fancy,  which  makes  one's  diction 
pictorial,  by  the  use  of  words  full  of  life  and  light. 
Thus,  for  example,  to  exemplify  this  process,  one 
man  speaking  of  a  public  reception  given  him,  like 
that  extended  to  Mr.  Mitchell,  the  Australian  ref- 
ugee, in  New  York  a  few  years  since,  a  welcome 
in  which  the  ladies  participated,  would  simply  say, 
perhaps,  in  describing  it,  "  The  ladies  welcomed 
me "  ;  but  Mitchell,  the  rhetorician,  struck  off  the 
same  idea  beautifully  by  saying,  "  Whitest  hands 
have  waved  their  sweetest  welcome  to  me, — the 
banished  outlaw."  Here  is  exactly  the  same  idea, 
yet  how  differently  expressed.  In  fact,  in  the  style 
of  a  man  who  does  not  possess  this  fanciful  power 
of  word-painting,  you  contemplate  his  thoughts,  as 
it  were,  through  a  common  window ;  but  in  the 
style  of  the  artist  in  words,  you  look  at  his  thoughts 
through  the  stained  glass,  purpling  with  colors  of 
Tyrian  dye,  or  burning  in  sunset  splendors  sinking 
in  autumn  in  the  gateway  of  gold. 

With  this  imagination  of  the  lesser  sort  was  com- 
bined an  imaginative  power,  not  only  of  phrases  and 
diction,  but  of  thought.  This  was  in  him  a  royal 
faculty.  Some  one  well  said  of  Waldo  Emerson, 
"  Conviction  sits  upon  his  lips  "  ;  an  auditor  of  Ames 
might  well  say,  that  Conviction  and  Poetry  lived  upon 
his  tongue.  Men  felt,  as  they  heard  him,  that  the  poet 
as  well  as  the  prophet  was  speaking,  and  they  gave 
up  their  souls  to  the  subduing  enchantment  as  well 


FISHER  AMES.  137 

as  their  minds  to  the  intellectual  master.  Whoever 
now  reads  his  few  surviving  speeches  must  feel  that 
the  wing  of  his  imagination  is  of  tireless  flight.  He 
soars  along  from  height  to  height  of  his  argument, 
from  image  to  image,  from  one  kind  of  figure  and 
image  to  entirely  different  kinds  and  species  of  orna- 
ment and  illustration ;  working  them  up  and  weav- 
ing them  in  many-piled,  till  the  work  glitters  and 
dazzles  and  glows.  His  summary  description  of  the 
administration  of  Washington  is  at  once  grand, 
comprehensive,  and  beautifully  imaginative.  "  Like 
the  milky  way,"  he  says,  "  it  whitens  along  its  al- 
lotted portion  of  the  hemisphere.  The  latest  gen- 
erations of  men  will  survey  through  the  telescope  of 
history  the  space  where  so  many  virtues  blend  their 
rays,  and  delight  to  separate  them  into  groups  and 
distinct  virtues."  It  was  this  opulent  imagination  of 
thought  and  of  expression  upon  which  he  relied,  as 
all  orators  must  rely,  for  elevating  the  ordinary  and 
commonplace  staple  of  speeches  into  a  fabric  which 
should  be  attractive  and  striking.  The  main  matter 
of  speeches  is  like  the  bulk  of  the  action  and  the 
business  of  life,  plain  and  cheap.  So  is  the  warp 
and  woof  of  the  royal  Wilton  carpet,  yet  on  that 
warp  and  woof  the  three-piled  Turkey  damask 
spreads  a  luxurious  surface.  That  opiatic  day- 
dreamer  who  is  dazzling  this  age  by  his  fine  writing, 
Thomas  De  Quincey,  defines  Rhetoric  to  be,  the  art 
of  aggrandizing  a  common  thought  and  bringing  it 
out  into  strong  relief,  by  concentrating  around  it  a 
12* 


138  CONGRESS. 

multitude  of  other  thoughts  not  common  but  brilliant 
and  imaginative  ;  thus  they  encircle  it  with  a  halo 
not  its  own,  — "  the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
shore,  the  consecration  and  the  poet's  dream."  Thus 
how  finely  Ames  utters  the  idea,  that  the  laws  of 
our  country  are  to  be  obeyed,  not  from  fear  of  our 
country,  but  from  love  of  her.  "  In  the  authority  of 
her  laws,"  he  says,  "  we  see  not  the  array  of  force  and 
terror,  but  the  venerable  image  of  our  country's  hon- 
or ;  every  good  citizen  makes  that  honor  his  own." 
Here  he  personifies  our  country,  he  invests  her  with 
a  venerable  mien,  and  he  presents  her  as  linking  the 
tables  of  her  commandments  with  the  immediate 
honor  of  our  hearts ;  and  again,  when  he  is  speaking 
of  the  personal  calamity  to  every  citizen,  of  a  degra- 
dation on  the  flag  of  his  native  land, — "  Could  he 
look  with  affection  and  veneration,  to  such  a  country 
as  his  parent.  He  would  blush  for  his  patriotism, 
and  justly,  for  it  would  be  a  vice."  And  then,  in 
one  fiery  phrase,  he  sums  it  all  up,  — "  The  citizen 
would  be  a  banished  man,  in  his  native  land." 

But  over  and  above  the  effective  and  telling  points 
of  style  and  the  gleaming  beauty  of  his  composi- 
tion, there  was  one  other  tint  thrown  upon  the 
canvas  of  his  oratoric  creations,  which  came  rather 
from  the  heart  than  from  the  brain ;  and  that  was 
the  charm  of  the  purest  and  the  most  high-minded 
sentiment.  No  cheap,  commonplace  scraps  of 
morality  tagged  on  to  his  paragraphs  for  effect,  — 
pure  thoughts,  learned  originally,  perhaps  at  Sunday- 


FISHER  AMES.  139 

school,  and  never  again  remembered  at  all  till  they 
were  wanted  for  use.  No,  but  so  thorough  an  in- 
fusion of  the  spirit  of  goodness  and  elevation  into 
all  he  said,  that  even  although  it  might  not  embody 
itself  in  any  particular  phrase,  it  made  itself  felt 
everywhere,  —  imperceptibly  permeating  and  purify- 
ing the  whole  ;  even  as  the  breath  of  the  thousand 
sweet  airs  of  a  summer  sunrise  mingling  together, 
forbids  all  grovelling  thought,  and  lifts  the  soul 
upward  on  the  wings  of  the  morning  toward  the 
pavilion  of  the  pure  throne.  This  element  of  oratoric 
power  was  the  result  of  no  art,  but  the  gift  of  a  gen- 
uine unsophisticated  goodness  ;  a  goodness  which 
would  satisfy  the  exactions  of  even  that  severe  Ger- 
man conception  of  eloquence,  which  declares  that 
no  man  can  be  a  great  orator  who  is  not  first  a  good 
man.  Emphatically,  he  was  a  good  man.  The 
word  "  good,"  in  our  language,  is  derived  from  the 
Saxon  "  gude,"  by  which  term  they  expressed  in 
abbreviated  form  at  once  the  highest  attributes  of 
the  Creator,  and  named  his  awful  Being,  in  one 
sublime  syllable,  —  God.  And,  therefore,  when  our 
Saxon  ancestors  said  that  a  man  was  a  good  man, 
they  meant  to  liken  him  in  some  faint  measure,  to 
Him  who  sitteth  on  the  Throne,  and  before  whom 
the  stainless  Heavens  are  not  pure.  Tried  even  by 
this  august  standard,  the  character  of  him  we  are 
endeavoring  to  look  upon  may  even  then  be  termed 
good.  Virtue  seemed  to  have  set  the  mint-mark  of 
her  own  coinage  on  his  serene  brow  from  his  very 


140  CONGRESS. 

birth.  For  all  his  life  was  spotless ;  calumny,  whose 
darts  shot  everywhere,  spared  his  blameless  walk. 
Demosthenes,  nicknamed  "the  water-drinker"  among 
the  luxuriantly  indulgent  Greeks,  was  not  more  aus- 
tere in  his  temperance,  more  strict  in  his  regimen, 
and  severe  in  his  indulgences,  than  our  hero,  in  an 
age  much  more  free  and  easy,  to  say  the  least,  than 
our  own.  His  pleasures  and  diversions  indeed  were 
all  of  them  so  simple  and  so  beautiful,  that  he  hardly 
encountered  temptation.  Indeed,  his  books,  the  se- 
renity of  conversation  with  favorite  authors,  low- 
living  and  high-thinking,  and  the  inexpressible  de- 
light of  rural  scenery  and  domestic  endearments, 
made  up  his  universe. 

Moreover,  the  effect  of  this  high  and  pure  and 
sweet  sentiment  of  his  thoughts,  was  spiritualized 
and  baptized,  as  it  were,  by  the  deep  religious  feel- 
ing everywhere  apparent.  He  seems  to  have  had 
from  boyhood  a  strong  religious  enthusiasm,  nur- 
tured and  sustained  in  all  his  after-life,  on  principle, 
and  making  its  mark  on  all  his  works.  This,  as 
well  as  the  leanings  of  his  taste,  led  him  to  a  fervent 
admiration  for  the  Bible,  considered  not  only  as 
revelation,  but  as  a  work  of  art.  Its  diction,  com- 
position, and  poetry  continually  excited  his  wonder 
and  his  study ;  while  its  truth  and  authority  as  an 
inspiration  he  thought  were  demonstrated  unmis- 
takably by  internal  evidences.  The  sublime  and 
correct  ideas  of  God  given  by  the  Jewish  writers, 
were  alone  to  him  a  substantial  argument  of  au- 


FISHEK  AMES.  141 

thenticity.  After  reading  the  Books  of  Deuteronomy 
and  Job,  he  expresses  his  astonishment  that  any  man 
could  have  the  hardihood  to  say  it  was  the  work  of 
human  ingenuity.  As  from  the  flames  of  the  burn- 
ing bush,  the  worshipping  Moses  heard  issuing  the 
voice  of  God,  so  over  the  whole  Jewish  history 
and  poetry  and  prophecy,  he  saw  the  holy  fire  em- 
anating and  playing  and  the  awful  shadow  moving 
in  the  midst. 

The  language  and  the  style  of  the  Bible  he  con- 
sidered a  model  of  English  undefiled.  President 
Kirkland  tells  us  that  he  thought  it  ought  to  be  more 
taught  in  our  public  schools,  as  a  principal  instru- 
ment of  making  children  acquainted  with  our  lan- 
guage in  its  purity.  Dr.  Johnson  said,  "  Whoever 
would  acquire  a  masterly  English  style,  must  give 
his  days  and  his  nights  to  the  study  of  Addison  " ; 
but  Ames  was  often  heard  to  say,  "  I  will  hazard  the 
assertion,  that  no  man  can  become  truly  eloquent, 
who  does  not  love  and  admire  the  sublimity  and 
purity  of  the  language  of  the  Bible." 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  also,  that  Watts's  "  Select 
Hymns"  had  always  imprinted  themselves  on  his 
mind  and  flowed  from  his  tongue  as  fully  and 
freely,  as  they  often  contributed  to  sustain  and 
beautify  the  eloquence  of  another  great  spirit,  and 
of  sublimer  song.  For  it  is  well  remembered  that, 
in  the  intense  scrutiny  thrown  on  Mr.  Webster's 
works  when  he  died,  good  men  learned  with  pleas- 
ure, that  his  Sabbath-school  memories  of  Watts  had 


142  CONGRESS. 

been  confirmed  by  his  mature  readings,  and  that 
pages  upon  pages  of  that  author's  beautiful  hymns 
were  in  his  mind,  and  figures  upon  figures  of  his 
fancy  were  shining  in  his  Speeches. 

And  all  this  circle  of  powers  showed  itself  as 
much  in  easy  conversational  eloquence  at  home,  as 
well  as  on  the  public  stage.  There,  in  his  later  life, 
at  his  old  country-house  in  Dedham,  he  used  to  sit, 
surrounded  by  his  visiting  acquaintances,  he  the 
centre  of  the  distinguished  group.  Samuel  Dexter 
and  Christopher  Gore  and  Theophilus  Parsons  would 
be  with  him,  and  sometimes  friends  from  a  distance, 
linked  to  him  by  the  associations  of  friendly  public 
service,  —  greater  names,  such  as  Alexander  Hamil- 
ton or  Gouverneur  Morris.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  and  agreeable  talkers  of  his  day,  and 
would  often  rise  in  conversation  to  genuine  elo- 
quence. The  remark  was  his,  that  a  lie  would  travel 
round  the  State  while  truth  was  putting  on  her 
boots.  He  used  to  say  that  his  friends  in  Boston 
stopped  him  on  his  way  to  Dedham,  and  drained 
him  of  talk,  so  that  when  he  got  home  he  was  so 
tired  he  wanted  to  lie  right  down  and  "roll  like  a 
horse." 

He  was  once  travelling  in  one  of  the  southern 
counties  of  the  State,  and  took  refuge  from  a  storm 
in  what  seemed  to  be  a  church.  He  soon  saw,  in 
the  broad-brims  and  silence  of  the  scene,  that  it 
must  be  a  Quaker  meeting.  A  subject  had  been 
proposed,  and  they  were  all  still,  keeping  up  the 


FISHER  AMES.  143 

"tremendous  thinking," — but  speaking  to  themselves. 
Suddenly  Ames  rose ;  they  turned  towards  the  un- 
known intruder.  He  began  quietly  to  talk  upon  the 
subject,  smooth,  liquid,  melodious  ;  they  listened. 
He  went  on ;  their  rapt  attention  kindled  him,  and 
soon  he  sailed  out  into  the  great  open  sea  of  elo- 
quence and  inspiration,  —  then  his  words  swept 
them  like  the  storm-breath.  Just  then  the  shower 
ceased,  the  sun  beamed  forth.  He  stopped  ab- 
ruptly, turned  away  and  left  them. 

Some  years  after,  Ames,  as  a  lawyer,  went  the 
southern  circuit.  In  trying  a  certain  cause,  in  one 
of  the  chief  towns  of  the  same  county  where  he  had 
invaded  the  Quakers,  he  rose  to  address  the  jury, 
without  exciting  any  unusual  notice ;  but  he  had 
hardly  spoken  fifteen  minutes  and  begun  to  glow, 
when  the  foreman  rose  and  motioned  him  to  stop. 
"  Squire,"  said  he,  "  did  n't  you  go  to  such  a  town," 
&c.,  "  and  go  into  a  Quaker  meeting  ?  "  "  Yes." 
"  Thank  God!"  he  exclaimed,  "  I've  found  the  angel. 
We  all  thought  that  day  it  was  an  angel  from 
Heaven,  and  we  decided  the  matter  unanimously, 
exactly  as  you  said." 

In  summing  up  thus  particularly  the  elements  of 
his  oratory,  we  come  now  to  speak  of  one  quality 
which,  if  it  were  absent,  could  be  compensated  for 
by  not  any  or  all  of  these  combined ;  and  that  is  his 
fervor  and  enthusiasm.  We  said  at  the  outset  that 
all  the  other  elements  of  oratory  would  undoubtedly 
be  thought  by  a  promiscuous  audience  wholly  pow- 


144  CONGRESS. 

erless,  without  a  kindling  energy  of  sensibility  and 
passion.  And  how  often  we  see  this  exemplified  in 
our  own  familiar  observation,  —  on  our  platforms, 
at  our  anniversaries  and  caucuses.  How  often  an 
elaborate  speech,  rich  in  thought  and  choice  in 
words,  and  carefully  conned  over,  got  up  in  the 
most  perfect  order  to  achieve  a  prodigious  effect, 
falls  tediously  on  our  ear,  sounding  wishy-washy  and 
weak  as  Taunton  water ;  producing  a  result  happily 
told  of  by  a  wag,  who  described  such  an  occasion 
as  one  where  "  all  went  off  well,  especially  the  au- 
dience." While  again,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man 
not  very  learned,  who  perhaps  has  never  "  been  to 
College,"  but  who  has  the  gift  of  warm  and  rapid 
speech,  will  mount  the  stage  and  pour  forth  a  tor- 
rent of  musical  and  excited  tones  for  an  hour  to- 
gether, which  shall  wake  everybody  up,  set  every- 
body's hands  and  feet  a  going,  and  if  he  does  not 
convince,  at  least  make  so  strong  an  impression  on, 
his  auditors,  that  it  would  rather  trouble  an  adver- 
sary ;  although  perhaps  one  hour  afterwards  neither 
he  nor  they  can  tell  one  word  he  ejaculated.  There 
is  a  great  temperance  orator,  who  boasts,  and  justly, 
that  he  has  spoken  one  hundred  times  in  the  Tre- 
mont  Temple  in  Boston,  on  that  hackneyed  theme, 
to  an  audience  crowded,  and  growing  more  so  all 
the  time.  And  yet  his  whole  effect  was  produced 
solely  by  his  vehement  temperament ;  an  eloquence 
which  we  may  rightly  call,  therefore,  the  eloquence 
of  blood.  When,  then,  this  vast  native  power,  suffi- 


FISHER  AMES.  145 

cient  of  itself  to  make  the  fortune  of  a  speaker,  is 
combined  with  other  more  solid  and  permanently 
impressive  traits,  the  union  makes  the  all-powerful 
orator,  —  the  true  Son  of  Thunder.  Such  a  union 
did  Fisher  Ames  present. 

His  sensibilities  were  acute.  Like  the  children 
of  genius,  his  pulse-beats  were  warm  and  quick, 
—  all  stimulated  and  energized  by  a  temperament 
absolutely  tropical.  When  he  spoke,  all  this  liveli- 
ness of  sensibility,  this  fervor  of  feeling  and  the 
bounding  and  leaping  rush  of  his  blood,  stirred  within 
him  like  a  supernatural  possession.  He  was  carried 
on,  he  was  swept  along  by  a  blazing  and  mighty 
tide  of  emotions.  Thoughts  that  had  never  visited 
him,  in  the  stilly  night  of  his  ordinary  states  of  feel- 
ing, now,  in  this  noontide  effulgence  of  his  mind, 
beamed  into  being.  His  tones  waxed  full  and  grand 
and  touching ;  they  took  on  a  new  color  from  the 
glorious  enkindling  of  his  spirit ;  the  passion  and 
the  poetry  of  his  nature  played  upon  each  other ; 
he  kindled  more  and  more,  he  waxed  more  touching 
and  yet  more  terrible,  till  at  length  men  said,  and 
said  truly,  he  is  a  musician  in  his  tones  and  a  poet 
in  his  words.  And  this  excitement,  mental  and 
spiritual,  was  so  great,  that  it  continued  to  operate 
after  the  cause  had  ceased  to  work.  After  debate, 
his  mind  "  was  agitated  like  the  sea  after  a  storm, 
and  his  nerves  were  like  the  shrouds  of  a  ship  torn 
by  the  tempest."  Yet  we  must  not  be  understood  to 
say,  that  this  fire  was  necessarily  that  of  vehemence, 
13 


146  CONGRESS. 

or  wild  and  screaming  energy,  like  that  of  Charles 
James  Fox,  the  great  Commoner  of  England ;  or 
like  the  drum-beat  rolls  of  Father  Gavazzi's  rever- 
berating intonations.  His  delicate  physical  ma- 
chinery would  not  endure  such  forging ;  for  he  was 
not  very  robust,  not  massive,  nor  capable  of  great 
physical  fatigue.  But  the  fire  was  rather  that  of 
pathos,  and  deep,  sweet  feeling.  He  rather  per- 
suaded and  seduced  your  acquiescence,  than  aston- 
ished and  compelled  your  assent  by  thundering 
bravuras  of  oratory.  Such,  at  least,  was  the  pre- 
vailing average  character  of  his  performances,  from 
which,  as  from  a  level  of  enthusiasm,  he  rose  and 
soared  into  nights  more  intense  and  will-compelling. 
And  then  his  very  pathos  and  tenderness  grew  mighty 
and  soul-subduing,  like  the  heat  and  light  condensed 
and  concentrated  in  the  thunder-cloud. 

The  orators  of  antiquity  who  first  wielded  at 
will  the  fierce  democracies,  labored  long  to  develop 
their  sensibilities.  In  them,  they  were  satisfied,  was 
hidden  the  key  to  unlock  and  let  loose  the  sympa- 
thies of  all  mankind,  learned  and  unlearned,  high 
and  low ;  for  one  touch  of  nature,  then  as  now,  they 
knew  made  the  whole  world  kin.  And  therefore  it 
was  that  Cicero  so  drove  up  all  his  energies  and 
faculties  under  their  influence,  that  a  shattered  con- 
stitution forced  him  very  early  in  life  to  journey  on 
an  Asiatic  tour,  to  recover  from  its  excessive  effects. 

To  whatever  discipline  Ames  had  subjected  his 
native  energies,  certain  it  is,  that  on  rousing  occa- 


FISHER  AMES.  147 

sions  he  was  shaken  and  storm-tossed  in  the  rush  and 
violence  of  his  emotions.     As  when,  for  example,  he 
predicted  and  painted  the  consequences  of  yielding 
to  French  influence  on  our  American  Republic,  and 
unrolled  the  possible    programme  of  the  country's 
destiny ;  that  dream  of  empire  since  so  adequately 
realized.      For  he   cherished  no   delusion  that  the 
country  would  be  undying ;  he  knew  that  if  she  was 
to  be  kept  alive,  it  must  be  by  the  sleepless  wisdom 
of  her  best  men ;    keeping   her  out  of  entangling 
alliances  with   foreign   powers,  desperate   to   those 
she  would  aid,  ruinous  to  her.     He  knew  that  with 
a  nation,  as  with  nature,  the  seeds  of  decay  were 
sown  on  field  and  in  flower,  and  that  at  some  time 
the  deadly  hour  must  strike  on  the  grand  dial  of  na- 
tions ;  then  with  her,  as  with  a  man,  the  silver  cord 
of  her  national  life  should  be  loosed,  and  the  golden 
bowl  be  broken  at  the  fountain.     All  this,  with  the 
wisdom  gained  from  historic  study,  he  knew.     From 
afar,  therefore,  he  gazed  into  the  grave  of  his  country 
and  saw  her  in  her  shroud.     Yet  he  knew  also  that 
by  wisdom  the  evil  day  might  be  put  far  off,  and 
meanwhile  and  ere  she   should   descend  from  the 
meridian,  he  would  have  her  run  a  career  unmatched 
by  any  kingdom,   unapproached  by  the   Empires ; 
which  should  make  history  confess  that  our  Union, 
the  calm  and  married  unity  of  sister  States,  almost 
deserved  the  title  of  the  immortal  League  of  Love. 
Then  and  thus  and  on  such  occasions,  it  was  that 
he  mounted  far  above  himself  and  seemed  to  stand 


148  CONGEESS. 

upon  the  clouds  ;  then  he  wielded  in  full  vibration 
that  transcendent  form  of  power  before  which  Athens 
shuddered,  and  under  whose  influence  the  foremost 
man  of  all  this  world  —  the  Emperor  Csesar  — 
bowed  his  laurelled  head  and  wept. 

It  was  partly  an  inevitable  consequence  of  the 
luxuriant   imagination   which   illuminated   and  the 
warmth  of  sensibility  which  inflamed  his  mind,  that 
Mr.  Ames  was  not  in  the  general  acceptation  of  the 
term,  a  severe  reasoner.     He  seemed,  however,  less 
logical  than  he  really  was,  because  the  flowers  of  his 
rhetoric  often  masked  and  garlanded  the  iron  ribs  of 
the  frame-work  of  his  reason.      Yet,   in   fact,  the 
imaginative  faculties  of  the  man  often  enabled  him 
to  leap  from  premises  to  conclusions  by  a  sort  of 
intuition,  without  meaning  and  marking  his  several 
steps.     And   his  warm  temperament  impelled  and 
urged  him  constantly  to  do  this.     Quick  as  light  he 
would  often  bound  upon  the  right  conclusions  and 
announce  them  oracularly,  and  yet  be  utterly  unable, 
except  in  a  few  flashing  sentences  of  assertion,  to 
tell  you  how  he  got  there,  or  why  you  should  follow 
him.     This  intuitive  sagacity,  this  emancipation  from 
all  the  trammels  of  reason,  and  all  the  necessities  of 
giving  any  reason  for  anything,  is  said,  with  some 
reason,  to  belong  exclusively  to  the  other  sex,  to  be 
a  woman's  privilege.     It  is  said  that  the  mind  of  a 
woman,  on  many  matters,  will  hurry  infallibly  to  the 
landing-place  of  a  correct  conclusion,  and  yet  she 
can't  tell,  for  her  life,  anything  about  the  stairs  by 


FISHER  AMES.  149 

which  she  went  up,  —  only  she  knows  she 's  right,  — 
and  nobody  ventures  to  ask  her   any  more.     The 
truth  is,  she  has  taken  the  successive  steps  of  mental 
movement,  but,  in  the  nimbleness  with  which  her 
mind  acts,  she  has  not  so  noticed  and  observed  them, 
as  to  be  able  to  recall  and  specify  them.     The  aver- 
age mind  of  woman  is  warmer  and  more  ideal  than 
the  average  mind  of  man.     Not  more  so,  of  course, 
than   that  of  the    great   creators,  the   Miltons  and 
Mozarts,  the  Shakespeares  and  Rossinis,  but  above 
the  ordinary  development  of  the  masculine   mind. 
Therefore,  it  happens  that  she  is  continually  doing 
on  a  small  scale,  what  great  orators  do  on  a  large 
scale ;  and  it  does  not  follow  at  all  that  because  you 
say,  she  don't  reason,  that   you  therefore  can  say, 
she  is  not  right.      Lord  Chatham   never   reasoned 
closely  for  thirty  minutes  together  in  his  life,  and 
yet  the  England  of  Lord  Chatham's  Prime  Ministry 
was  a  magnificent  England.     It  is  then  this  woman's 
element  of  being  able  to  come  at  true  results  by  a 
sort  of  intuition,  and  to  announce  them  as  from  the 
tripod  of  an   oracle,  so  that  people  believe   them 
without  reasons,  which  Fisher  Ames  exhibited.    And 
in  truth,  from  a  survey  of  the  whole  field  of  elo- 
quence,  it  would  appear   that   there  is   absolutely 
necessary  to  every  true  and  great  orator,  a  certain 
attribute  of  feminity,  a  certain  tinge  of  womanly 
nature  coloring  his  whole  character. 

We  deny  then  emphatically,  the  assertion  of  those 
who  refuse  to  acknowledge  that  Ames  was  a  sound 
13* 


150  CONGRESS. 

reasoner,  because  he  was  a  radiant  rhetorician  and 
a  glowing  orator.  Logic  he  had,  to  support  the 
body  of  his  rhetoric,  but  the  bones  of  the  skeleton 
did  not  stick  out,  and  often  he  himself  could  hardly 
tell  precisely  where  they  were.  Yet  the  figure  stood 
solidly  upon  its  pedestal,  as  stands  the  Apollo  in  the 
Vatican  to-day ;  with  no  bone  seen,  no  muscle  prom- 
inent, yet  firm  as  a  rock,  in  rounded  contour  and 
undying  beauty. 

We  have  now  spoken  of  the  intellectual  traits  and 
energies  of  this  remarkable  public  man.  But  the 
picture  of  an  orator  is  always  unfinished  without 
some  idea  of  his  physical  qualities.  Mr.  Ames,  as 
we  have  heard  him  described,  was  rather  above  the 
ordinary  stature,  though  not  tall ;  quite  well  put 
together  and  well  formed.  His  face,  according  to 
Stuart's  portrait,  was  not  deeply  furrowed  or  strong- 
ly marked.  But  over  it  played  ever  the  winning 
light  of  a  most  gracious  and  benignant  expression  ; 
the  pure  soul,  the  good  impulse  and  the  genial 
nature,  shining  out  plain  and  bright,  rather  than  the 
more  rugged  lines  of  severe  greatness.  True  great- 
ness is  always  simple  and  often  sweet  in  character, 
and  it  would  not  be  hazardous  to  assert,  that  the 
higher  the  type  of  greatness,  the  nearer  it  would  ap- 
proach to  an  infantile  purity  and  sweetness.  This 
benign  expression,  then,  reigned  in  his  face  as  the 
countenance  of  his  soul.  His  forehead  was  good, 
though  not  eminently  broad  or  capacious.  His 
mouth  was  not  large,  as  Cicero's  was,  and  as  some 


FISHER   AMES.  151 

have  said,  all  orators'  must  be,  but  it  was  of  medium 
size  and  handsome,  like  that  other  eloquent  Roman 
and  greater  man,  Caesar.  His  hair  was  quite  black, 
and  worn  usually  short  on  the  forehead,  though  its 
darkness  was  relieved  by  his  habit  at  one  time  of  his 
life,  in  the  fashion  of  the  day,  of  powdering  it.  His 
eyes  were  blue,  —  something  between  the  black-blue, 
and  the  dark  sea-blue,  —  the  sternness  of  their  beam, 
when  aroused,  softened  by  their  liquidness.  He  was 
always  very  erect,  and  when  speaking,  his  excitement 
threw  up  his  head  and  braced  him  up  naturally  even 
more.  It  was  not  his  habit  wholly  to  pre-write. 
He  did  little  more  than  draw  the  outline  in  his  closet, 
trusting  to  the  wealth  of  his  mind  and  the  enthusi- 
asm of  the  moment  for  the  rest. 

And  now,  when  all  these  natural  and  these  ac- 
quired accomplishments  were  brought  at  one  time 
into  play,  —  so  much  learning,  so  much  store  of  ele- 
gant literature,  such  exuberance  of  fancy  and  reach 
of  imagination,  such  tender  and  pure  sentiment, 
such  felicity  and  strength  in  using  those  Scripture 
words  and  images  which  we  learn  first  at  the  moth- 
er's knee,  and  which  touch  therefore  the  key-notes 
of  our  deepest  and  holiest  springs  of  action ;  when 
this  oratorio  material,  this  stock,  was  woven  into  a 
style,  rich  and  pointed,  terse  and  telling,  by  its  epi- 
gram and  careful  period  and  melodious  cadence, 
exaggerating  even  the  weight  of  the  thought ;  and 
when  all  this  body  of  fine  thoughts  finely  expressed, 
was  pronounced  in  all  the  variety  of  tones  and  ges- 


152  CONGRESS. 

tures,  which  the  most  impassioned  sensibility  could 
dictate  to  a  form,  voice,  eye  responsive  to  the  com- 
mand, —  it  is  easy  to  see  how  prodigious  must  have 
been  the  effect. 

Yet,  in  thus  breaking  into  their  elements  the  pow- 
ers of  an  orator,  we  do  him  injustice.  His  effect  is 
often  due  to  the  grand  union  of  the  whole,  and  to 
some  mystic  principles  of  art  and  genius  which  he 
employs  in  the  combination  and  complete  work, 
which  he  can  always  use,  but  cannot  himself  ex- 
plain ;  a  magic  art  by  which,  as  the  work  glances 
from  his  free  spirit,  he  flings  over  it  with  the  dis- 
criminating touch  of  a  master,  the  rainbows  of  rhet- 
oric and  the  flashes  of  passion,  —  and  leavens  it  all 
with  the  mystical  spirit  of  beauty,  and  pathos,  and 
power ;  like  the  undefinable  light  which  hovers  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Madonna  of  Raphael,  like  the  im- 
measurable power  which  seems  to  threaten  in  the 
frescoes  of  Angelo. 

After  all,  as  we  read  an  oration,  we  feel  that  it  is 
dead,  —  dead  as  the  speaker  is  who  made  it.  We 
feel  as  the  Grecian  JEschines,  when  he  read  the 
Crown  speech  to  the  people,  "  You  should  have 
heard  Demosthenes."  We  want  the  infection  of  the 
great  audience,  the  thrill  throbbing  and  pulsating 
from  heart  to  heart,  the  shouting  of  ten  thousand  in 
the  open  air.  Would  we  had  heard  that  famous 
speech  of  our  orator,  on  the  British  treaty;  seen 
those  tears  of  his  hearers ;  seen  the  magician  in  the 
midst  of  his  ^pells.  That  speech,  delivered  in  the 


FISHER  AMES.  153 

last  term  of  the  Washington  presidency,  was  the 
close,  the  consummation,  the  crown  of  his  orator  life. 
Fast  toward  death  even  then  he  was  sinking,  but  he 
felt  the  immense  interests  of  the  hour.  If  that  treaty 
were  not  carried  out,  the  whole  border  of  the  Re- 
public would  blaze  with  naming  homes  ;  and  the 
peace  of  the  new-born  State  broken,  her  new  Con- 
stitution must  tremble.  All  this  he  felt ;  and  he 
nerved  the  slender  thread  of  his  life,  to  give  his  ex- 
piring eloquence  its  last  and  loftiest  strain,  —  the 
divine  cadence  truly  of  the  dying  swan !  at  length, 
when  in  predicting  the  consequences  of  the  vote,  he 
told  Congress,  in  his  most  touching  tone  of  pathos, 
that  when  those  consequences  came  he  should  be 
under  the  sod  of  the  valley,  the  whole  house  listened 
in  silent  tears  ;  and  when  after  such  a  heart-rending 
appeal  in  the  name  of  his  new  country  and  their 
new  hopes,  as  those  men  had  never  before  heard,  he 
sank  back  powerless  into  his  seat,  they  instantly 
adjourned,  —  unable  to  vote,  unable  to  think,  able 
only  to  feel. 

Fisher  Ames  died  as  he  had  predicted.  He  died 
like  Jefferson,  like  Adams,  on  the  birthday  of  his 
country.  Upon  the  4th  of  July,  1808,  the  voice  of 
his  eloquence  was  silenced  for  ever.  No  aspiring 
monument  tells  his  recorded  honors  to  the  stars  ;  — 
but  in  the  little  village  churchyard  of  his  native 
town,  a  plain  slab  with  his  name  "  Fisher  Ames,"  — 
simple,  alone  and  unadorned,  still  keeps  his  memory 

green  in  the  hearts  of  his  townsmen. 
6 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE   BAE. 

v» 

THE  speech  of  the  American  Bar  has  not  been  so 
significantly  American  as  that  of  the  Senate.  It  has, 
however,  been  clearly  pronounced  as  Republican, 
by  its  scope  and  range  rather  than  by  its  topics  of 
enforcement  or  illustration.  The  old  "  Common 
Law"  of  Fleta  and  Bracton  and  Coke  was  greatly 
liberalized  in  its  application  to  our  broad,  unfenced, 
unfeudalized  lands ;  and  with  respect  to  persons,  the 
new  status  of  the  republic  worked  corresponding 
changes  in  the  status  of  citizens,  in  the  eye  of  the 
court,  both  as  between  themselves  and  between  them 
and  the  government.  Even  as  colonies,  our  courts 
had  moved  where  the  file  afforded  no  precedent,  and 
in  Massachusetts,  we  are  accustomed  to  boast  that 
in  Suffolk  County  we  had  anticipated  by  two  years 
the  emancipation  ruling  of  Lord  Mansfield,  that  the 
free  soil  of  England  could  not  feel  the  shackled  foot 
of  a  slave  ;  ( Chief  Justice  Holt,  however,  it  will  be 
found,  had  anticipated  by  seventy  years  both  Mans- 
field and  the  colony.) 


THE  BAR.  155 

The  free  range  of  our  lawyers  through  all  the 
courts,  no  rigid  system  of  subdivision  in  professional 
occupation  prevailing,  has  combined  with  their  origi- 
nality in  the  application  of  legal  principles,  to  give 
their  minds  greater  freedom  of  action,  and  their 
tongues  warmer  fervor  of  argument. 

Alexander  Hamilton,  with  no  rhetorical  aid  of 
style,  spoke  before  the  New  York  courts  in  pure 
legal  argumentation  with  a  noble  and  weighty  elo- 
quence. In  the  great  case  of  The  People  vs.  Cross- 
well,  he  maintained  substantially  the  same  demo- 
cratic position  that  Erskine  had  maintained  in 
England ;  that  the  defendant  in  an  action  for  libel 
was  entitled  to  give  the  truth  in  evidence.  To  him 
Chancellor  Kent  applies  the  remark  of  Mr.  Justice 
Buller,  that  "  principles  were  stated,  reasoned  upon, 
enlarged,  and  explained,  until  those  who  heard  him 
were  lost  in  admiration,  at  the  strength  and  stretch 
of  the  human  understanding." 

It  was  said  of  Henry  Clay,  too,  that  no  one  had 
ever  really  heard  him,  in  the  true  pathos  of  his 
nature,  who  had  not  seen  him  before  a  jury  in  Ken- 
tucky, when  his  heart  was  young. 

Some  have  asserted  that  Webster  never  was  so 
irresistibly  eloquent  as  in  an  ugly  but  meritorious 
law  case,  where  proofs  were  black  and  the  law 
cramping,  but  the  "  merits  "  were  plain.  The  great- 
est of  Ogden  Hoffman's  efforts  was  considered  to 
be  his  argument  in  the  case  of  Robinson,  indicted  in 
New  York  for  the  murder  of  Helen  Jewett ;  a  de- 


156  THE   BAR. 

fence  which  takes  position  with  Rufus  Choate's 
celebrated  defence  of  Tirrell,  indicted  for  the  murder 
of  his  mistress  in  Boston.  But  in  these  latter  cases, 
the  eloquence  came  from  the  passion  and  the  pathos 
of  the  advocates,  acting  through  illustrative  topics 
outside  of  the  precise  "  issue "  and  the  applicable 
principles  of  law. 

The  American  law  now  is,  for  the  reasons  stated 
in  the  opening  chapter,  rapidly  solidifying  into  a 
science  of  petrified  precedents  ;  here,  as  in  England, 
the  chief  opportunity  or  temptation  to  oratory,  in  the 
practice  of  the  profession,  is  before  the  jury;  and 
then,  it  appears  in  thoughts  and  feelings  not  sug- 
gested at  all  by  the  legal  aspects  under  which  the 
subjects  of  suit  present  themselves.  The  two  names 
of  lawyers  in  our  country,  who  have  had  a  concep- 
tion of  professional  attainment  of  original  breadth 
and  splendor,  are  William  Pinkney  and  Rufus 
Choate;  these  are  the  luminaries  of  the  American 
Bar.  Each  regent  of  its  firmament,  for  his  own 
hour ;  the  morning  and  the  evening  star  of  its  most 
effulgent  day. 


WILLIAM    PINKNEY. 

In  his  Lecture  on  the  Study  of  History,  addressed 
to  Lord  Cornbury,  that  oratorio  philosopher,  Lord 
Bolingbroke,  after  describing  the  profession  of  the 
law  as,  in  its  nature,  the  noblest  and  most  beneficial 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  157 

to  mankind,  in  its  abuse  the  most  sordid  and  per- 
nicious, rises  to  a  high  impulse  of  just  enthusiasm, 
as  he  exclaims,  "  There  have  been  lawyers  that  were 
orators,  philosophers,  historians;  —  there  have  been 
Bacons  and  Clarendons,  my  Lord  ;  there  shall  be 
none  such  any  more,  till  in  some  better  age  men 
learn  to  prefer  fame  to  pelf,  and  climb  to  the  vant- 
age-ground of  general  science."  This  sentiment  of 
Bolingbroke  may  aptly  introduce  a  sketch  of  Wil- 
liam Pinkney. 

There  have  been  in  our  country,  perhaps,  half  a 
dozen  advocates  of  national  repute  as  orators,  — 
Pinkney,  Choate,  Legare,  Wirt,  Prentiss,  and  Ogden 
Hoffman  ;  all  of  them  quite  accomplished,  well-read 
and  widely-learned,  and  blending  with  the  severer 
qualities  of  the  lawyer  the  higher  and  more  kindling 
attributes  of  the  man  of  genius.  All  of  them  have 
in  some  sense  seemed  impressed  with  the  force  of 
this  opinion  of  Bolingbroke ;  all  of  them  have  pur- 
sued ideal  excellence  rather  than  gold,  all  of  them 
have  grasped  that  glory  which  is  far  better  than  gold. 
But  among  them,  two  names  stand  advanced  by 
general  consent  as  chiefs  at  the  Bar,  beyond  dispute 
facile  princeps ;  —  two  men,  who  united  in  them- 
selves more  of  the  essential  qualities  of  the  advocate- 
orator,  and  carried  those  qualities  to  a  higher  pitch 
of  excellence  than  all  the  rest,  —  William  Pinkney 
and  Rufus  Choate.  The  mention  of  the  one  vividly 
suggests  the  other,  and  by  often  looking  at  them  in 
comparison  and  contrast  in  this  humble  attempt  at 
14 


158  THE   BAR. 

a  criticism  on  the  former,  we  shall  be  better  able  to 
arrive  at  a  comprehension  of  the  latter.  In  some 
respects,  too,  Choate  may  be  considered  the  pupil  of 
Pinkney.  He  heard  him  and  admired  him  in  his 
own  youth,  he  has  evidently  studied  him  in  his  more 
mature  discipline  of  himself,  and  in  one  prominent 
particular  he  closely  resembles  him,  —  the  mastery 
of  a  diction  evidently  learned  up,  labored,  and  made 
a  specific  object  of  constant  effort. 

Pinkney  would  have  been  listened  to  by  the 
courtly  and  accomplished  Bolingbroke  with  some 
surprise  at  first,  if  not  with  repulsion,  but  the 
thorough  appreciation  of  power  of  understanding 
and  power  of  tongue  which  gave  to  Bolingbroke 
himself  such  utterances,  that  William  Pitt  desired 
to  rescue  nothing  so  much  from  all  the  chasm  of 
history  as  "a  speech  of  St.  John,"  would  finally 
have  brought  the  first  orator  of  England  into  the 
circle  of  admirers  of  the  first  advocate  of  America. 
For  first  in  his  life-time  he  undoubtedly  was,  and 
although,  since  then,  Rufus  Choate  may  be  con- 
sidered to  have  gone  before  him,  it  is  by  a  more 
various  rather  than  a  more  absolute  power.  For 
while  over  the  whole  emotional  department  of  men's 
natures  Choate  sways  an  easy  sovereignty,  Pinkney 
had  over  the  passions  and  affections  of  men  hardly 
any  direct  legitimate  control.  When  he  touched 
them  at  all,  it  was  by  sonorousness  of  tone  and  the 
flash  of  an  intellectual  fancy  ;  while  in  hard-headed 
law  logic  he  exercised  a  tyranny  over  the  reason 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  159 

more  positive  even  than  Choate  can  command. 
Yet  how  mournful  it  is  to  reflect  that  this  luminous 
orb  of  the  forensic  firmament  is,  as  regards  the 
mass  of  Americans,  entirely  set,  —  a  mere  myth,  a 
bright  tradition !  Out  of  the  profession  and  out  of 
the  class  of  book-learned  men,  he  is  utterly  forgotten, 
in  thirty  years  from  the  utterance  of  his  last  syllable 
in  public  court.  So  has  it  been  with  the  chiefs  of 
the  Bar  in  the  olden  times  and  in  all  time ;  from  the 
day  when  Cicero  repined  over  the  transitory  renown 
of  Crassus,  to  the  day  when  our  own  Judge  Story,  be- 
fore whom  Pinkney  so  often  contended,  lamented  to 
the  Law  School  at  Cambridge,  the  vanishing  memo- 
rials of  the  most  splendid  ornament  which  their  pro- 
fession in  America  had  ever  seen.  Erskine's  memory 
lives  only  in  consequence  of  the  fortunate  theatre,  and 
the  still  more  fortunate  set  of  topics  upon  which  his 
voice  at  its  best  moment  was  heard.  Curran  is  re- 
called but  vaguely  and  by  a  limited  number  of  read- 
ers ;  and  when  the  time  shall  come  for  Rufus  Choate 
to  join  the  little  gifted  band,  his  own  magnificent 
capacity,  it  cannot  but  be  feared,  will  share  the  fate 
of  his  sole  rival  in  contemporaneous  American  fo- 
rensic renown,  —  "  Serus  in  coslum  redeat ! " 

It  must  be  exceedingly  difficult  if  not  impossible 
for  any  one,  living  thirty  years  after  William  Pink- 
ney, to  appreciate  the  figure  which  he  made  in  the 
eyes  of  the  American  world.  No  one  stood  any 
where  near  him  in  his  peculiar  fame.  At  the  time 
of  his  death,  Webster  had  not  done  much  more  than 


160  THE   BAR. 

begin  to  make  his  prodigious  impression  on  the  age. 
Thomas  H.  Benton,  in  his  "  Thirty  Years  in  the 
Senate,"  has  no  hesitation  in  describing  him  as  uni- 
versally allowed  in  his  day  to  be  the  most  applauded 
orator  of  the  American  people.  Whenever  he  made 
a  great  argument  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  crowds  of  ladies  and  unprofessional 
men  blocked  up  the  court-room  and  passage-ways; 
the  effort  was  canvassed  and  talked  about  in  a  thou- 
sand newspapers,  and  distant  cities  felt  the  throb  of 
interest  it  occasioned  in  the  central  capital.  Nor 
was  this  at  all  the  unthinking  tribute  of  the  careless 
multitude  to  the  externals  of  oratory  alone,  —  the 
musical  and  mighty  shouting  and  passion-playing 
action  of  the  merely  skillful  vociferator ;  the  wisest, 
the  gravest,  the  greatest,  went  before  the  heedless 
and  the  gay  in  their  unstinted  admiration.  The 
Judges  of  the  Supreme  tribunal  of  the  land  listened 
to  him  not  only  with  appreciative  respect  but  with 
constant  and  ever-renewing  expression  of  their  judi- 
cial applause.  The  Chief  Justice,  the  greatest  Chief 
Justice  America  has  ever  seen,  Marshall,  who  seemed 
born  in  anticipation  of  the  birth  of  the  republic  to 
fill  her  first  judicial  seat,  declared,  that  in  all  his  life 
he  never  knew  Pinkney's  equal  as  a  reasoner ;  and 
Judge  Story,  the  most  widely  erudite  and  world-re- 
nowned jurist  of  all  to  whom  our  country  has  ever 
given  the  ermine,  was  accustomed  to  speak  of  him, 
to  the  day  of  his  death,  as  the  most  glorious  figure 
he  had  ever  seen  at  the  Bar ;  no  report  in  print,  he 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  161 

told  the  law-students  at  Cambridge,  exhibits  the 
whole  compass  of  his  powers.  "  I  am  satisfied,"  he 
said,  "  that  Pinkney  towers  above  all  competitors, 
princeps  inter  principes.  Never  do  I  expect  to  hear 
such  a  man  again.  He  was  one  who  appears  but 
once  in  a  century."  And  the  Judge  gave,  in  one  of 
his  letters,  what  would  be  thought,  when  the  circum- 
stances are  considered,  a  final  measure  of  his  esti- 
mate, by  saying  that  he  would  cheerfully  journey 
from  Salem  to  Washington  to  hear  hini  speak;  — 
that  was,  be  it  remembered,  the  day  of  stage-coach 
travelling,  and  in  one  of  his  judicial  journeys  to  the 
seat  of  government  he  had  already  been  upset,  and, 
as  his  son  tells  us,  had  thereby  made  his  shoulder  a 
weather-gage  for  life.  And  not  only  did  the  calm 
tests  of  the  judges  concede  to  him,  in  concurrence 
with  the  more  ardent  admiration  of  the  crowd,  this 
full  pre-eminence,  even  his  compeers  and  rivals 
finally  voted  him  the  first.  William  Wirt,  whose 
fervors  of  advocacy-antagonism  were  too  sweet- 
blooded  long  to  blind  his  perceptions  of  truth, 
although  at  first  and  for  some  time  he  denied  and 
withstood  Pinkney's  ascendency,  came  at  length  fully 
to  comprehend  him ;  and  whereas  in  the  beginning 
he  had  called  him  "  a  charlatan,"  called  him  at  last 
"  a  glorious  creature  " ;  and  Daniel  Webster  (against 
whom  his  last  and  fatal  argument  was  made,  when 
he  fell  like  Chatham  on  the  theatre  of  his  struggle, 
and  was  borne  forth  no  more  for  ever  to  return  to  it), 
altogether  above  the  injustice  of  rivalship,  himself 
14* 


162  THE   BAK. 

said  to  the  author  in  a  conversation  in  Washington, 
ten  years  ago,  "  Pinkney,  I  think,  was  the  greatest 
orator  I  ever  heard."  While,  to  crown  this  cata- 
logue of  credits,  if  any  capstone  be  needed  to  bring 
before  the  reader's  mind  the  full  span  of  the  arch  of 
his  fame,  the  first  Parliamentarian  among  us,  Henry 
Clay,  also  remarked  to  the  writer,  in  conversation 
about  the  same  time,  that  he  thought  the  finest 
speech  he  had  ever  heard  from  mortal  man  was 
from  the  Tips  of  William  Pinkney.  Surely,  with 
such  a  weight  of  contemporary  homage  in  his  favor 
from  the  learned  and  the  unlearned,  the  beautiful, 
the  wise,  the  great,  we  cannot  be  far  wrong  in  our 
exalted  estimate  of  his  oratorical  rank ;  and  every- 
body who  takes  any  interest  in  this  class  of  subjects 
'may  well  spare  a  moment  carefully  to  consider  him. 
After  all  that  can  be  said,  however,  Pinkney  was 
not,  any  more  than  Choate,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
term,  a  natural  orator ;  not  one  who  came  into  this 
world  with  an  imperative  commission  to  speak  writ- 
ten in  his  blood  and  on  his  brain.  He  did  not  at 
first  feel  any  admonition  at  all  from  his  tongue,  for 
he  made  his  start  in  life  as  a  disciple  of  medicine,  a 
student  of  drugs  rather  than  tones.  He  took  to 
speaking  kindly  enough  when  he  found  it  essential 
to  success  after  he  entered  the  Bar ;  but  he  was  not 
urged  to  it  irresistibly  by  the  trumpet-call  of  his 
spontaneous  enthusiasms,  as  the  war-horse  snuffs 
the  battle  from  afar  and  bounds  even  riderless  to 
the  charge.  He  listened  to  the  screaming  raptures 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  163 

of  Charles  James  Fox,  unartistic  but  natural,  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  with  no  enthusiasm  ;  he  could 
not  discern,  he  said,  that  Fox  was  an  orator,  while 
the  icily  fretted  frost-work  of  William  Pitt's  King's 
speech-oratory,  cold  and  majestic,  stirred  up  all  his 
ardors  of  emulation.  He  was  what  might  be  called 
an  architect  of  oratory,  a  builder  of  oratory  out  of 
fit  material,  rather  than  a  born  creator  of  oratory  in 
spite  of  defective  material.  A  study  of  the  remains 
of  his  works  shows  that  the  prominent  rhetorical 
traits  of  his  earlier  Speeches  and  his  immature 
"  speechicles  "  underwent  a  perceptible  modification 
as  he  advanced  in  his  career ;  and  his  diction  and 
manner,  and  even  the  tone  of  his  voice,  was  finally 
quite  metamorphosed  from  what  it  was  originally. 
But  although  an  architect,  his  structures  were  fire- 
work  as  well  as  frame-work,  and  their  lines  and  ele- 
vations and  flaming  faces  burned  into  the  memory 
of  all  to  whom  they  were  shown. 

Pinkney's  first  mental  characteristic,  first  developed 
and  underlying  everything,  was  Strength.  He  was 
born  undoubtedly  for  a  hard-headed  lawyer,  and  his 
ambition  made  him  a  hot-headed  orator.  His  intel- 
lectual grasp  was  like  an  iron  vice,  not  naturally 
very  wide-reaching,  but  close  and  firm  as  was  ever 
given  to  man.  Afterwards,  when  he  was  fully  de- 
veloped, his  mind  was  much  wider  in  its  play  but 
equally  firm  in  its  grasp ;  and  its  clutch  of  particu- 
lars was  as  close  as  its  hold  on  principles  was  broad. 
Samuel  Dexter's  mind,  against  whom  he  often  ran  in 


164  THE  BAR. 

his  earlier  practice,  was  a  very  good  subject  with 
which  to  contrast  his.  Dexter  had  a  bold,  decisive 
hold  on  principles  ;  from  them  he  would  reason  with 
unerring  and  unanswerable  logic,  not  troubling  him- 
self very  much  with  "  authorities " ;  but  Pinkney 
was  profoundly  read  and  a  master  of  precedents ; 
and  holding  in  his  mind  an  immense  field  of  au- 
thorities and  "  dicta,"  with  all  their  expandings  and 
qualifications,  their  depths  and  shallows,  he  would 
build  up  from  them  his  principle,  and  force  his 
special  "  case"  into  the  desired  classification.  Dex- 
ter's  mode  was  rather  the  deductive,  Pinkney's  the 
inductive  course  of  thought.  His  mind  was  not 
philosophical  or  statesmanlike.  No  broad  and  pro- 
found generalizations  of  philosophy  and  history 
dignify  and  elevate  his  spoken  thoughts,  such  as 
reveal  the  immense  reading  and  wide  thinking  of 
Choate,  even  in  his  most  glittering  and  figurative 
productions.  And  the  diplomatic  career  of  Pinkney, 
quite  long  and  varied  as  it  was,  laid  no  laurels 
among  his  forensic  trophies.  His  mind  was  the 
mind  of  a  natural  lawyer,  hard,  solid,  iron-like. 
He  loved  the  "  black-letter."  He  read  the  "  Year- 
Books  "  with  pleasure  ;  and  he  and  Theophilus  Par- 
sons were  said  to  be  the  only  men  of  their  day  who 
read  thoroughly  and  completely  mastered  "  Coke 
upon  Littleton."  That  dry,  hard  commentary  of 
Lord  Coke  was  Pinkney's  favorite  law-book.  He 
read  it  many  times  through  and  through.  Its  prin- 
cipal texts  he  had  riveted  in  his  memory,  and  the 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  165 

analogies  and  principles  drawn  from  this  ancient 
mine  of  common-law  learning  were  continually 
appearing  in  his  legal  discourse.  In  his  profession 
he  found  himself  at  home.  "  The  Bar,"  he  said,  "  is 
not  the  place  to  preserve  a  false  or  fraudulent  repu- 
tation for  talents,"  —  and  to  win  on  its  stage  the 
reputation  of  [a  first-part  actor  was  to  him  the  prize 
of  life.  To  the  law,  he  had  felt  himself  originally 
irresistibly  attracted  by  natural  inclination,  and  he 
followed  it  ever  after  with  a  grand  passion.  The 
culture  of  letters  and  the  repute  of  universal  accom- 
plishment were  nothing  to  him,  except  as  they  con- 
tributed to  his  oratoric  armament,  and  made  its 
broadsides  more  terrible. 

He  always  said,  himself,  that  his  fancy-work  cost 
him  more  labor  than  his  law  or  logic  ;  and  both  the 
fancy  and  the  law-learning  and  the  compact  reason- 
ing, bristling  all  over  his  argument  speeches,  con- 
spired to  give  them  their  aspect  of  prodigious 
strength,  yet  almost  sumptuous  beauty ;  one  set  of 
qualities  solidified  what  the  other  set  decorated  and 
cheered.  The  fabric  of  his  oratory  was  Cyclopean 
rock  trellised  with  flowers. 

It  will  help  us  to  an  estimate  of  the  power  of  his 
mind,  to  consider  that  his  law-learning  was  as  accu- 
rate as  it  was  wide- varying  and  comprehensive  ;  and 
to  consider,  also,  that  by  that  learning  and  the  prin- 
ciples of  jurisprudence  deduced  and  induced  there- 
from, he  was  able  to  contribute  essentially  to  inau- 
gurate our  American  views  of  international  law. 


166  THE   BAR. 

More  particularly  this  was  the  case  in  regard  to  the 
questions  embraced  under  claims  of  prize,  and  all  the 
conflicting  and  delicate  points  growing  out  of  our 
famous  naval  war  of  1812.  Under  the  Confedera- 
tion, this  branch  of  public  law  had  been  treated  as 
identical  in  its  application  to  us,  with  the  views  held 
by  the  maritime  states  of  Europe  of  its  application 
to  them.  But  the  decisions  of  the  Court  of  Appeals, 
which  then  embraced  this  jurisdiction,  were  in  great 
measure  lost ;  a  loss  no  less  to  the  fame  of  the  dis- 
tinguished patriots  and  the  able  jurists  of  our  coun- 
try who  presided  there,  than  to  the  Corpus  Juris,  — 
the  body  of  our  law.  The  necessary  consequence 
was,  that  the  breaking  out  of  the  war  of  1812  found 
us  almost  without  experience  in  this  branch  of  law, 
so  far  as  judicial  precedent  was  concerned.  The 
elementary  writers,  most  of  whom  are  deficient  in 
practical  details  and  particular  applications  of  the 
general  principles  they  lay  down,  could  imperfectly 
supply  this  want.  It  therefore  became  necessary  to 
discuss  on  principle  the  leading  doctrines  of  prize 
law,  and  to  confirm  them  by  the  ruling  of  the  Su- 
preme Court.  And  here  it  was  that  Pinkney's  pow- 
ers came  in  to  enlighten  the  court  and  thereby 
establish  the  law. 

It  further  illustrates  his  legal  stamina,  that  in  the 
great  questions  of  the  interpretation  of  our  national 
Constitution,  which  came  before  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  Mr.  Wheaton  (so  long  the  reporter 
of  that  august  body,  and  afterward  our  American 


WILLIAM  PINKNET.  167 

Ambassador  near  Berlin)  declared  that  he  thought  it 
might  be  said  without  irreverence,  that  Mr.  Pink- 
ney's  learning  and  powers  of  argumentation  mate- 
rially contributed  to  fix  the  judgments  of  the  Court. 
Besides  these  considerations,  in  taking  the  gauge 
of  his  mind,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  that  the  general 
field  of  service  of  a  first-class  American  lawyer  is  far 
wider,  and  demands  higher  and  more  universal  pow- 
ers, than  the  courts  of  any  other  great  country  have 
called  for,  since  the  Roman  pleader  stood  up  before 
the  Roman  praetor  and  discussed  the  citizenship  of 
the  poet  Archias,  with  a  blaze  of  fancy  and  a  range 
of  political  philosophy,  which  have  handed  down  his 
argument  for  the  universal  citizenship  of  a  poet,  as  a 
possession  to  immortality.  The  great  lawyer  of 
America  must  be  a  publicist  if  not  a  statesman. 
The  unparalleled  compass  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
national  Supreme  Court,  the  range  of  our  lawyers 
through  every  Court  at  will,  not  tied  by  usage 
to  particular  ones,  the  unprecedented  circumstances 
of  our  people,  who  are  the  lawyer's  clients,  which 
continually  render  necessary  new  applications  of  old 
rulings,  and  sometimes  absolutely  altogether  new 
principles  to  be  thought  out  and  enunciated  where 
no  "  file  affords  a  precedent,"  and  lastly,  the  high 
esteem  in  which  the  Bar  as  a  profession  is  held,  and 
the  avenues  which  continually  lead  to  and  fro  be- 
tween it  and  senatorial  honors  and  public  occupa- 
tions, —  all  combine  to  elevate  the  profession,  to 
render  its  intellectual  demands  rigorous,  and  to  mark 


168  THE   BAR. 

out  a  broad,  elevated,  and  somewhat  even  unex- 
plored field  of  action  as  the  domain  of  a  leading 
lawyer  of  America. 

Our  Supreme  Appellate  Bench  is  clothed  with  an 
imperial  array  of  powers.  Besides  its  extensive  func- 
tions as  an  ordinary  court  of  justice,  it  administers 
the  Law  of  Nations  to  our  own  citizens  and  to  for- 
eigners, and  determines  in  the  last  resort  every  legal 
question  arising  under  our  municipal  Constitution, 
including  the  conflicting  pretensions  of  the  State  and 
National  sovereignties.  It  is  before  "  this  more  than 
Amphictyonic  Council,"  as  Pinkney  called  it,  that 
the  American  lawyer  is  called  to  plead,  not  merely 
for  the  private  rights  of  his  fellow-citizens,  but  for 
their  constitutional  privileges ;  and  before  them  he 
discusses  the  rival  pretensions  of  these  incorporated 
sovereignties. 

The  freedom  of  all  courts  and  all  departments  of 
the  law  which  our  lawyer  enjoys,  and  which  is  so 
different  from  the  English  restrictions,  which  sub- 
divide every  department  with  minutest  accuracy,  is 
most  favorable  to  general  vigor  and  liberality  of 
mind.  In  such  a  course  of  labors,  technicality  has 
no  chance  to  make  itself  the  sine  qua  non  of  the 
mind,  and  to  become,  as  we  have  often  seen  it,  the 
very  meat  and  drink  of  the  counsellor's  mind  and 
soul ;  drying  up  his  enthusiasms  and  dulling  the 
heaven-lifting  dreams  of  the  bravest  ambition. 
Greater  nicety  and  more  exquisite  artistic  elabora- 
tion are  gained  by  the  English  system  of  division, 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  169 

and  their  limit  of  departments  of  legal  labor,  but  a 
narrow  and  what  may  be  called  a  "  niminy  piminy  " 
cast  of  mind  is  almost  inevitably  engendered  by  it. 
But  the  mind  of  the  American  lawyer  bounds 
through  the  broad  regions  in  which  it  is  permitted 
to  expatiate,  as  the  winds  dash  about  the  grand 
American  prairies ;  and  his  legal  impetus  bursts 
through  the  little  nipped-up  niceties  of  jurispru- 
dence, as  the  mind  of  the  American  man  bursts 
through  the  gilt  railings,  behind  which  crazy  conven- 
tionalities and  antiquated  aristocracies  seek  to  in- 
trench themselves ;  and  so  liberalized  are  the  minds 
of  these  men  of  law  by  the  study  of  general  jurispru- 
dence, and  so  flexible  and  varied  is  the  training  of 
their  talents,  that  a  man  in  the  front  rank  of  the 
American  Bar  easily  grasps  the  business  of  any  of 
the  great  offices  of  peace  and  war,  in  that  public 
service  to  which  forensic  eminence  here  inevitably 
conducts.  For,  as  in  the  ancient  republics,  the  great 
advocate,  as  he  faced  the  bench  of  the  Praetor,  could 
see  with  no  distant  reach  of  vision  the  gilded  beaks 
of  the  captive  galleys  which  formed  the  character- 
istic mark  of  the  Roman  rostrum ;  and  rising  be- 
hind the  assembly  of  the  people  of  Rome,  could 
see  in  the  same  glance  the  pillars  of  the  Senate- 
House  ;  so,  the  great  advocate  with  us,  as  he  pleads 
to  the  Bench  or  the  jury-panel,  needs  no  telescopic 
vision  to  see  the  road  of  honor  which  leads  up  even 
to  the  Curule  Chair  of  the  first  dignity  of  magistracy 
on  this  earth.  These  circumstances,  combined  with 
15 


170  THE   BAR.. 

the  imperial  jurisdiction  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
administering  the  political  law,  have  advanced  the 
science  of  jurisprudence  in  the  United  States  far  be- 
yond the  general  condition  of  literature,  and  have 
made  the  Bar  the  true  aristocracy  of  intellect,  as 
well  as  the  best  aristocracy  of  society.  Of  this 
American  Bar,  Pinkney  was  the  acknowledged 
head  and  the  despotic  leader. 

His  memory  was  a  bed  of  steel.  If  it  could  be 
true  of  any  man,  —  and  it  was  said  to  be  true  of 
Mr.  Webster,  —  that  anything  once  well  taken  into 
his  mind  was  never  afterward  absolutely  forgotten, 
we  are  sure  it  was  so  of  Pinkney.  As  the  races  pass- 
ing across  the  surface  of  the  earth  record  themselves 
in  those  rocky  letters  which  Geology  reads  to  us,  to 
last  as  long  as  the  earth  lasts,  so  the  capital  facts 
which  time  rolled  through  his  mind  seemed  to  cut 
themselves  into  its  very  stratum  and  fibre.  Judge 
Story  relates  a  little  story  illustrative  of  this  sureness 
and  tenacity.  It  was  a  scene  in  the  Supreme  Court. 
Pinkney,  in  the  course  of  an  argument,  remarked 
that  he  believed  such  an  author  gave  such  an  opin- 
ion, quoting  it  substantially;  the  counsel  on  the 
other  side  interrupted  him  with  a  flat  denial  of  this. 
Pinkney  turned  toward  him  with  the  greatest  appar- 
ent fury.  "  Hand  me  the  book ! "  said  he.  "  Never,  in 
my  not  short  juridical  life,  your  Honors,  have  I  at- 
tempted to  mislead  the  Court,  and  certainly  I  would 
not  attempt  it  with  a  Court  of  such  wisdom  and  lore 
as  this ;  if  I  did,  I  should  be  sure  of  being  exposed, 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  171 

and  I  hope  I  think  too  much  of  my  reputation  for 
such  an  artifice  "  ;  then  again,  turning  to  the  startled 
adversary  :  "  Pass  rne  the  book!  "  he  exclaimed,  "  and 
now,  before  I  open  it,  I  shall  tell  your  Honors  the 
page,  and  the  part  of  the  page,  where  this  authority 
is  stated,  and  let  me  begin  by  repeating  it  to  your 
Honors  " ;  he  then  opened  the  book,  pointed  to  the 
very  page  he  had  indicated,  and  the  authority  was 
found  to  correspond  word  for  word  with  what  he 
had  stated.  Never  after  that,  said  the  Judge,  did 
the  United  States  Court  listen  to  anything  he  said, 
without  respect. 

Starting,  then,  with  this  hard-headed  power  of  dry 
reason  and  fixed  fact,  made  hot  and  bright  with 
the  enthusiasm  of  an  earnest  temperament  (for  rea- 
son has  its  enthusiasm  as  well  as  imagination),  he 
appears  to  have  been  urged  on  by  this  vigorous  and 
ambitious  temperament  to  a  very  liberal  culture,  and 
to  a  course  of  literary  and  polite  accomplishment  quite 
out  of  the  line  of  the  ordinary  taste  of  men  of  such 
a  class  of  gifts  as  his  naturally  were ;  and  this  arti- 
ficial culture  especially  showed  itself  in  his  diction 
and  phrases  of  language.  It  appeared  not  so  much 
in  illustrative  thoughts  valuable  in  themselves, — 
solid  ingots,  nuggets,  and  diamonds,  —  as  in  that 
merely  ornamental  thought  which  goes  no  deeper 
than  the  phrases  and  words,  —  the  tinsel  and  the 
bravery  of  the  outward  array ;  quite  deep  enough, 
however,  for  the  instant  effect  which  alone  the  orator 
covets.  Edmund  Burke  went  further,  and  (as  an 


172  THE   BAR. 

orator)  fared  worse.  Accordingly,  Pinkney's  earlier 
efforts  were  dry  enough,  and  their  diction  was  cheap 
and  common,  but  made  fiery  by  mere  earnestness  ; 
while  his  maturer  efforts  were  beyond  expression 
rich  and  ornamented.  K-ufus  Choate  has  expressed 
to  the  author  the  opinion,  that  there  was  hardly  ever 
exhibited  such  an  immense  difference  in  the  compo- 
sitions of  the  same  man,  as  there  was  between  Pink- 
ney's earlier  Speech  on  Slavery  in  the  Maryland 
Legislature,  and  that  last  unrivalled  Speech  of  his 
in  the  United  States  Senate  on  the  Missouri  ques- 
tion. 

His  temperament  was  unusually  excitable  for  a 
man  of  his  mental  constitution ;  it  was  uniformly 
warm  ;  in  its  active  play  almost  fierce  ;  and  always 
courageous  and  combative  to  the  last  degree.  On 
his  own  field  he  was  utterly  dauntless ;  and  his  lofty 
and  scornful  port  and  manner  of  assault,  and  his 
general  unrestrained  and  defiant  impetuosity  at  the 
Bar,  seemed  to  taunt  all  adverse  comers  with  the 
sentiment  which  Macbeth  volleys  forth  to  Macduff, 
"  Lay  on  Macduff,  and  woe  to  him  that  first  cries 
'  Hold,  enough ! ' '  He  had  by  no  means  a  nervous 
organization,  nor  was  his  impulse  that  of  a  nervous 
energy ;  it  was  chiefly  -a  strong-willed  and  robust- 
bodied  energy  ;  and  the  fervors  he  displayed  so  over- 
bearingly resulted  from  the  force  and  heat  of  a  large, 
full  mind,  at  once  all  armed  and  alert  and  intense- 
ly stretched  and  exercised. 

His  ambition  was  noble  and  all  but  ungovernable. 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  173 

It  was  not  for  mere  success  or  mere  applause  alone, 
though  these  were  inordinately  dear  to  him  ;  it  was 
for  a  grand  ideal  of  attainment  and  excellence. 
When  he  went  to  Naples  as  special  Envoy  and  Min- 
ister, he  observed  to  a  friend,  "  I  want  to  see  Italy ; 
the  orators  of  Britain  I  have  heard,  but  I  want  to 
visit  that  classic  land,  the  study  of  whose  poetry  and 
eloquence  is  the  charm  of  my  life ;  I  shall  set  my 
foot  on  its  shores  with  feelings  that  I  cannot  de- 
scribe, and  return  with  new  enthusiasm,  I  hope  with 
new  advantages,  to  the  habits  of  public  speaking." 
When  in  his  last  argument  in  the  Supreme  Court, — 
his  last  argument  on  earth,  —  Judge  Story,  who  was 
upon  the  Bench,  observing  his  manifest  indisposi- 
tion, sent  a  page  to  tell  him  he  would  adjourn  the 
court  if  he  desired  ;  "  No,"  said  the  determined  and 
even  then  dying  hero,  with  a  resolution  worthy  of  a 
Spartan  battle-field  and  a  Spartan  soldier,  who  must 
come  home  "  with  his  shield  or  upon  it,"  —  "  no,  tell 
Judge  Story  I  have  a  reputation  to  maintain  ;  I  can't 
sacrifice  that,  I  must  go  on  "  ;  and  at  a  previous  time, 
when  his  friends  remonstrated  with  him  upon  his 
unceasing  and  unscrupulous  devotion  to  his  tasks, 
and  entreated  him  to  indulge  himself  with  some  rec- 
reations, warning  him  that  the  result  of  a  refusal  to 
unbend  might  be  fatal,  —  "  I  must  labor,"  he  replied, 
"  if  I  would  keep  my  place  at  the  head  of  the  Bar ; 
and  when  I  cease  to  keep  my  position  there,  —  I 
wish  to  die."  With  such  a  head,  with  such  a  tem- 
perament, and  such  ambition,  we  may  faintly  fancy 
15* 


174  THE   BAR. 

what  must  have  been  this  warrior  in  words,  as  he 
at  last  stood  forth  on  the  forensic  field  of  fight. 

This  general  culture,  with  which  he  was  thus  led 
to  arm  himself  for  oratoric  purposes,  was  derived 
from  sources  all  excellent  in  themselves,  and  some 
of  them  singularly  favorable  to  oratory ;  namely,  his 
desultory  reading,  his  literary  and  classical  studies, 
and  his  opportunities  for  observation  abroad,  ac- 
credited as  he  was  everywhere  as  a  Diplomatic 
Envoy  of  the  United  States.  His  early  education 
was  quite  imperfect.  His  classical  studies  were  not 
pursued  under  the  stimulus  of  any  sharp  competi- 
tions or  high  standards,  but  he  only  got  what  he 
could  from  a  commonplace  private  tutor.  He  read 
miscellaneously  however,  and  widely,  and  picked  up 
a  great  deal  of  loose  literary  matter,  some  resources 
for  illustration,  and  some  effective  expressions  of 
sentiment ;  but  it  was  not  till  his  going  abroad  to 
England  as  United  States  Commissioner,  that  he 
really  developed  the  ornamental  and  liberal  part  of 
his  thoughts  and  his  rhetoric.  There  he  enjoyed 
rare  opportunities  and  came  under  the  influence  of 
very  quickening  stimulants. 

Pitt  and  Fox  were  in  their  hour  of  glory,  and  in 
the  full  action  of  their  great  contention  over  the 
principles  of  French  republicanism,  —  the  first  ora- 
tors of  England  discussing  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  empire  and  of  law,  in  presence  of  the 
solemn  spectacle  of  the  dissolution  of  a  monarchy 
which  reached  back  to  Charlemagne,  and  the  degra- 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  175 

dation  of  a  throne  which  had  towered  over  Europe. 
In  the  courts  of  law,  he  saw  a  constellation  of  legal 
luminaries.  First  and  foremost,  he  heard  Thomas 
Erskine,  just  then  touching  the  meridian  of  his  celeb- 
rity, and  speaking  to  juries  as  no  man  ever  before  or 
since  spoke  in  Westminster  Hall.  And  in  his  own 
judicial  capacity  as  commissioner,  —  the  umpire  of 
the  conflicting  claims  between  English  and  Ameri- 
can citizens,  he  not  unfrequently  saw  John  Scott, 
afterwards  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon  and  Law,  after- 
wards Lord  Ellenborough,  standing  to  argue  claim 
cases  before  him.  By  his  public  station  also  he 
was  brought  into  immediate  contact  with  most  of 
the  eminent  English  civilians,  and  was  much  in  the 
society  of  Sir  William  Scott ;  in  whose  clear,  copi- 
ous, and  classical  style  he  found  a  model  for  a  sug- 
gestive rather  than  an  exact  imitation.  To  these 
studies  of  the  renowned  speakers  of  Great  Britain, 
and  these  audiences  of  the  leaders  of  the  English 
Bar,  he  was  also  able  to  add,  by  a  rare  felicity,  an 
equally  favorable  observation  of  those  tragic  celeb- 
rities who  have  since  taken  a  fixed  place  in  history, 
as  commanding  the  mimic  sovereignties  of  the  stage  ; 
for  Siddons  and  Kemble  were  shining  in  uneclipsed 
splendor ;  the  former  combining  all  of  Rachel's  artis- 
tic and  studied  correctness,  with  even  more,  we 
should  judge,  than  Ristori's  naturalness  and  pas- 
sionate abandonment.  Moreover,  the  tradition  of 
Edmund  Burke's  marvellous  intellectuality  was  still 
freshly  alive  m  England,  among  that  generation 


176  THE   BAR. 

who  had  watched  his  sun  go  down,  refulgent  to  the 
last. 

To  the  sight  of  this  varied  public  arena  he  did  not 
think  it  beneath  his  purpose  to  add  a  close  scrutiny 
of  the  brilliant  social  life  of  the  day,  —  a  social  life 
adorned  with  the  presence  of  the  gifted  and  the" 
great,  finding  rest  in  its  relaxations  from  their  high 
cares ;  and  illuminated  with  the  beautiful  faces,  the 
well-bred  manners,  and  politely  intellectual  converse 
of  ladies,  whom  History  herself  has  not  disdained  to 
notice.  The  greatest  pleader  whom  our  planet  has 
yet  seen  was  wont  to  declare  that  he  had  labored 
to  catch  the.  last  finish  of  his  rhetoric  from  the 
refined  traits  of  the  conversation  of  the  Roman 
ladies  ;  and  though  Pinkney  may  have  followed  un- 
consciously the  sagacious  precept  of  Marcus  Tullius, 
he  certainly  foUowed  it  with  equal  earnestness  and 
with  proportionate  success.  For  he  mingled  much 
in  the  highest  and  most  cultivated  society  of  Lon- 
don,— "  the  nation  of  London,"  as  De  Quincey  aptly 
calls  it,  —  and  constantly  studied  there  the  address, 
the  styles  of  expression,  and  modes  of  thought  and 
conversation  of  people  of  rank,  native  or  acquired. 
He  made  himself  familiar  with  the  colloquial  elo- 
quence of  the  polite  and  literary  gatherings  of  the 
day,  full  as  much  as  the  more  formal  oratory  of  "  the 
issues  "  of  Courts  and  the  debates  of  Commons ;  and 
upon  the  whole,  a  much  higher  standard  of  literary 
attainment  and  equipment  was  held  up  before  him 
than  in  our  own  country,  new,  materialistic,  and 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  177 

busy  as  it  was,  had  as  yet  been  thought  necessary  to 
embellish  and  give  life  to  the  logic  of  the  Bar  or  the 
statesmanship  of  the  Senate. 

To  attain  this  loftier  and  more  liberal  standard, 
which,  formed  partly  from  observation  and  partly 
from  reflection,  now  dazzled  his  ambition,  he  plunged 
into  a  course  of  English  literary  reading ;  he  at- 
tempted a  general  accomplishment  in  manners  and 
tastes  ;  and  he  began  a  supplementary  classical  line 
of  study,  which  he  afterward  sustained  to  the  close 
of  his  laborious  life.  A  trifling  circumstance  at  a 
London  dinner  party  applied  an  additional  spur  to 
his  purpose.  A  question  of  classical  literature  hap- 
pened to  be  mooted  around  the  board;  the  dis- 
tinguished guests,  with  their  English  classical  train- 
ing of  Eton  and  Rugby  and  the  Universities,  debated 
the  point  with  ardor  and  discrimination.  Mr.  Pink- 
ney  remaining  silent  in  the  controversy,  an  appeal  to 
him  was  at  length  made,  when  he  was  obliged  to 
confess  himself  entirely  unacquainted  with  the  sub- 
ject. In  consequence  of  this  incident,  he  was  induced 
to  resume  his  classical  studies,  and  actually  put  him- 
self under  the  care  of  a  master  to  review  and  extend 
his  acquaintance  with  the  literatures  of  antiquity.  In 
his  classical  exercises,  too,  he  did  more  than  look  at 
the  outer  shell  of  that  model  literature.  He  contem- 
plated in  the  Grecian  and  Roman  remains  the  aus- 
tere models  of  ancient  virtue,  as  well  as  the  fault- 
less patterns  of  antique  taste.  From  these  views, 
not  his  mind  only,  but  his  soul  gained  strength  ;  all 


178  THE   BAR. 

the  sublimity  of  his  nature  was  fostered  ;  and  no 
man  runs  such  an  untiring  and  high  race  as  his,  who 
has  not  born  within  him  something  of  natural  sub- 
limity, —  something  of  that  sacred  fire  which  marks 
and  announces  the  individuals  of  our  race  who  are 
born  with  instincts  and  impetuosities  above  their 
fellows,  —  born  to  tower  above  men  ;  and  destined  to 
lead  the  people,  sometimes  to  the  contemplation  of 
imperishable  aesthetic  models  of  taste,  sometimes  to 
practical  action,  sometimes,  as  in  his  case,  to  a  con- 
summation partaking  of  both.  In  those  studies  he 
felt  his  spirit  warming  with  the  disinterested  and 
generous  love  of  fame,  of  honor,  of  country,  and 
of  that  freedom  which  was  the  animating  soul  of 
the  first  republics ;  and  while  he  gained  from  his  daily 
views  a  just  estimate  of  the  more  economical  and 
wise  practical  organization  of  modern  societies,  he 
took  the  full  impress  of  the  noble  sentiments  which 
illumine  the  written  and  spoken  thoughts  of  antiq- 
uity ;  and  which  are  at  once  the  best  product  and 
the  most  certain  protectives  of  liberal  institutions, 
such  as  he  was  destined  to  live  under  and  adorn. 

His  study  of  the  English  literature  and  language 
was  most  methodical  and  painstaking,  and  he  at- 
tained a  general  acquaintance  with  the  whole  varied 
field  of  modern  literature.  Everything  that  could 
suggest  new  views  of  illustrative  thought,  or  could 
be  worked  into  analogies  to  spin  the  cords  of  argu- 
ment for  spanning  the  abyss  which  often  yawns 
between  a  lawyer's  premises  and  his  conclusion,  he 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  179 

laid  away  in  the  sure  grasp  of  his  memory.  Besides 
this,  he  read  in  a  various  and  desultory  manner, 
catching  at  everything  of  the  issues  of  the  press  as 
they  floated  by,  as  any  one  would  be  likely  to,  who, 
with  a  vigorous  intellect  and  a  disposition  to  indus- 
try, had  no  very  definite  object  before  him  but  to 
gratify  his  curiosity,  and  to  keep  pace  with  the  cur- 
rent literature  of  the  day.  We  should  not  by  any 
means  think  him  to  have  been  naturally  fond  of 
light  literature ;  his  mind  was  of  too  severe  a  tex- 
ture. But  when  he  came  to  appreciate  the  advan- 
tages of  this  lighter  matter  to  give  impulsiveness  and 
lustre  to  his  main  body  of  matter,  he  grasped  at  it 
with  the  double  object  of  keeping  up  with  the  age, 
and  of  adding  to  the  effective  force  of  -his  oratoric 
material.  All  the  popular  poems,  the  new  reviews 
and  town-talk  novels  he  was  able  to  converse  about 
as  if  he  knew  nothing  else ;  and,  indeed,  as  a  mere 
talker  and  conversationist,  he  might  have  enjoyed 
no  mean  note.  Novels  he  really  studied ;  their  in- 
vention, their  plot,  situations  and  fancies  nourished 
his  own  inventiveness  and  copiousness.  The  night 
before  he  made  the  last  argument  of  his  life,  he  had 
been  reading  over  with  critical  labor  Walter  Scott's 
"  Pirate,"  and  conversed  with  the  discrimination  of 
a  belles-lettres  scholar  about  its  incidents  and  execu- 
tion. In  this  respect  of  accepting  novels  as  a  por- 
tion of  a  complete  institution  for  even  the  sternest 
grapple  of  the  intellectual  powers,  he  was  not  unlike 
the  great  Chief  Justice  of  Massachusetts,  Theophilus 


180  THE   BAR. 

Parsons.  His  tenacious  memory  enabled  him  to 
retain  the  supplies  of  miscellaneous  knowledge  thus 
acquired ;  and  his  mind  was  further  enriched  with  a 
large  fund  of  historical  and  literary  anecdote. 

But  it  was  upon  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of  the 
English  language  as  a  vehicle  of  speech,  that  he 
most  directed  himself ;  that  he  cultivated  with  the 
utmost  assiduity  as  the  principal  auxiliary  of  his 
engrossing  pursuit.  No  man  in  our  country  has 
ever  more  thoroughly  mastered  the  English  lan- 
guage, in  its  exhaustless  vocabulary ;  not  so  much 
in  its  nice  shades  of  philosophical  and  exact  distinc- 
tions, as  in  its  abundance,  variety,  and  splendor. 
He  studied  the  dictionary,  page  after  page.  In  all 
the  structure  of  our  tongue,  he  knew  its  secrets,  its 
turns,  and  inflexions,  its  grammar  and  idiom,  its 
wealth  of  terms  and  force  of  significations,  its  syn- 
tax and  prosody  ;  in  short,  the  whole  language,  as  a 
body  of  expression,  in  its  primitive  and  derivative 
stock.  No  thought  glanced  through  his  mind,  that 
the  fitting  and  exact  dress  or  decoration  did  not  rise 
instantly  to  correspond  with  it ;  and  so  great  a 
variety  of  phrase  and  paraphrase  seemed  always 
suggested  to  him,  that  the  choice  was  more  difficult 
than  the  invention.  That  prodigious  advantage  to 
the  hurrying  mind  and  trembling  tongue  of  the  ora- 
tor, —  a  profusion  of  synonymes,  the  power  ito 
which  Lord  Brougham  has  been  said  to  owe  half 
his  ability  to  roll  forth  his  sonorous  thunderbolts 
of  thought,  —  that  capacity  he  revelled  in  the  full 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  181 

enjoyment  of.  The  best  models  of  diction  as  dic- 
tion, independently  of  thought,  he  was  persistently 
intimate  with.  Naturally,  his  tongue  was  facile  and 
fluent ;  his  phrenological  "  organ  of  language  "  was 
large,  and  it  was  developed  almost  to  a  morbid 
extent.  Conversation  in  his  house  was  made  a 
school  of  diligence  and  growth.  Highly  as  he 
prided  himself  on  his  English  and  his  verbal  abun- 
dance in  public,  in  private  also  he  aimed  at  a  col- 
loquial ease  and  beauty  which  upon  the  simplest 
topics  showed  the  skill  of  the  artist ;  this  tells  the 
man  who  is  the  real  master  of  language.  The  set 
debate  and  the  formal  senatorial  speech  may  be  got 
up  like  sermons  with  much  perspiring  preparation, 
but  the  easy,  off-hand  command  of  an  elegant  col- 
loquial energy  shows  your  true  word-master.  The 
finest  minds  in  the  country  admitted  his  skill  of 
words  in  the  legal  argument,  the  destinies  of  domin- 
ion were  responsive  to  its  influence  in  the  Congres-. 
sional  contests,  but  every  one  with  whom  he  talked 
also  felt  its  force  in  the  commonest  conversation  of 
the  hour. 

His  language  as  it  was,  when  at  last  he  had  got 
it  up  to  its  height,  was  in  some  respects  the  most 
magnificent  diction  for  oratorio  purposes  with  which 
the  thoughts  of  any  orator  in  our  land  have  ever  been 
mounted  and  displayed.  Well  might  William  Wirt, 
his  frequent  adversary,  say,  "  Give  Pinkney  opportu- 
nity, and  he  will  deliver  a  speech  of  which  any  man 
might  be  proud ;  you  will  have  good  materials  very 
16 


182  THE  BAR. 

well  put  together,  and  clothed  in  a  costume  as  mag- 
nificent as  that  of  Louis  XIV."  It  was  a  diction 
copious  even  to  crowding,  where  images,  phrases, 
and  the  ideas  which  are  suggested  by  mere  words, 
were  paraded  in  generalizations  and  subdivisions,  and 
with  inexhaustible  changes ;  it  was  a  glittering  dic- 
tion, full  of  striking  conceits  and  apt  allusions,  full 
of  bold,  bright  words,  —  the  bravery  of  speech ;  it 
was  an  emblazoned  diction,  splendid  with  pomp  of 
metaphor ;  and  amid  it  all  his  main  thought  moved 
on  with  an  equal  force  and  equilibrium,  like  a  ban- 
nered galley  pushing  its  steady  way  on  a  broad  but 
tossing  stream.  If  any  one  would  see  at  a  glance 
what  can  be  done  with  the  most  barren  of  themes, 
by  an  artist  in  discourse,  let  him  turn  to  Wheaton's 
report  of  Pinkney's  argument  on  the  constitution- 
ality of  the  Bank  ;  if  then  he  does  not  stand  amazed 
at  the  abundance  of  investing  ideas  by  which  the 
tossing  diction  tumbles  the  argument  along,  he 
must  be  himself  a  masterly  Rhetorician. 

Such  were  the  sources  of  his  great  gift  of  lan- 
guage, such  its  copiousness,  such  its  capacity ;  pre- 
cisely what  form  and  shape  it  took  as  it  fell  from  his 
lips,  —  that  is,  what  was  his  style,  (as  far  as  any  one 
who  never  composed  anything  to  be  read  could  be 
said  to  have  a  style,)  will  best  be  answered  by  say- 
ing that  it  was  a  diffusive,  abundant,  torrent-like 
style,  equally  incorrect  arid  effective.  It  was  in- 
correct because  it  did  not  obey  the  standard  canons 
of  rhetoric ;  it  would  not  do  to  read  it  too  carefully ; 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  183 

it  would  not  have  answered,  for  instance,  like  Hugh 
Legare"'s,  for  the  North  American  Review  or  the 
respectable  Quarterlies  ;  it  was  very  irregular ;  there 
was  little  symmetry  about  it ;  sometimes  a  sentence 
a  page  long,  with  hardly  a  single  semicolon  stopping- 
place,  and  then  again  short,  dagger-like  sentences,  — 
the  mucrones  verborum,  sharp  spears  of  words ;  it 
was  very  flowing  and  cursive,  though  not  very  ryth- 
mical.  But  though  it  was  thus  full  and  flashing  in 
its  headlong  course,  its  moods  and  changes  were  not 
those  of  capricious  fancy,  caracoling  as  if  in  play 
with  words  ;  nor  were  they  confused  by  a  heated 
imagination,  like  E-ufus  Choate's  ideality,  dashing 
the  colors  round  the  subject  on  his  canvas  with  a 
Persian  picturesqueness ;  nor  was  it  rambling  with 
the  desultory  splendor  of  Curran's  Milesian  frenzies, 
—  aiming  as  Curran  did  in  his  speaking  to  throw 
himself  upon  the  tide  of  extempore  conceits,  with 
the  same  justifiable  courage  as  Fox  plunged  into  the 
middle  of  his  sentences,  "  trusting,"  as  he  said,  "  to 
God  Almighty  to  get  him  out  of  them." 

No,  Pinkney  more  resembled  the  younger  Pitt, 
in  the  elaborate  and  calculated  construction  of  his 
periods,  with  infinitely  more  fire,  and  immeasurably 
more  decoration ;  for  in  all  the  successive  members 
of  his  agglomerated  sentences,  and  through  all  his 
flood  of  words,  you  saw  the  ever-flowing  springs  of 
closely  meditated  thought  beneath.  In  every  clause 
of  the  paragraphs  which  we  can  now  read  and  criti- 
cise accurately  at  leisure  you  see  he  knows  what  he  is 


184  THE   BAR. 

saying,  and  why  he  is  saying  it ;  you  see  the  force  and 
shaping  of  a  serious  and  intent  mind.  But  the  care- 
ful mind  was,  nevertheless,  always  conscious  that  its 
task  was  to  create  a  fabric  for  the  display  of  the 
moment,  not  the  calmer  scrutiny  of  the  hour.  There 
are  no  exquisite  felicities  of  composition  such  as 
Fisher  Ames  threw  off  even  in  his  arguments,  no 
delicate  graces,  —  only  glaring  beauties ;  there  are 
felicitous  words,  shining  words,  striking  words, — 
the  ardentia  verba  and  the  aurea  verba,  the  burning 
and  the  golden  words,  but  they  are  never  woven  in 
with  that  Demosthenic  delicacy  and  subtlety  which 
barbed  all  over  the  Demosthenic  energy  of  style  ;  that 
exquisite  craft  of  style  which  can  stick  an  epithet  on 
to  a  man  like  a  "  Poor  Man's  Plaster,"  and  fasten 
a  phrase  to  a  character,  like  those  close-hugging 
pantaloons  which  our  day  hangs  round  unfortunate 
people  of  fashion,  who  seem  to  have  been  melted 
and  poured  into  them.  Whether  he  ever  could  have 
taught  his  pen  and  tongue  to  move  in  the  harness  of 
a  style  fit  for  deliberate  effect,  like  the  genuine  beauty 
of  Everett's  prose  or  the  majestic  harmony  of  Web- 
ster's, is  questionable.  We  shall  never  know,  for 
what  he  did  dazzled  only  with  the  lightning  flash; 
and  left  its  mark  only  where  it  struck,  on  the  docket 
of  the  Supreme  Court  or  the  journal  of  the  National 
Senate.  It  is  clear,  however,  and  so  far  we  may  be 
advanced  to  an  opinion  upon  his  literary  rhetorical 
capacity,  that  he  was,  like  a  far  greater  and  more 
philosophical  talker,  Edmund  Burke,  quite  faulty  in 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  185 

taste ;  and  what  he  really  admired  William  Pitt  for 
was,  we  are  persuaded,  the  extraordinary  grasp  of 
his  precocious  mind,  balancing  imperial  interests  for 
its  every-day  topics,  rather  than  the  severer  graces  of 
his  bald  though  balanced  Senatorial  style.  Pinkney 
had  one  quality,  however,  which  is  at  the  bottom 
of  all  good  style,  that  is,  clear-headedness  ;  the  pon- 
derous mass  of  thought  which  he  wielded  never 
choked  or  clouded  his  powerfully  assimilating  intel- 
lect ;  heaped  up  fuel  stifles  little  fires,  but  great  ones 
it  makes  blaze ;  and  his  intellectual  combustion 
always  conquered  its  material.  , 

Of  true  imagination  Pinkney  was  quite  devoid. 
Rufus  Choate  has  observed  that  Pinkney  was  the 
most  interesting  mind  which  has  ever  in  America 
given  itself  entirely  to  law.  We  are  said  always  to 
be  in  love  with  our  opposites  in  character,  and  here 
is  an  instance  of  the  apothegm  ;  for  in  Choate's 
chief,  native  quality  of  passionate  imagination  these 
two  firebrands  of  jurisprudence,  as  they  have  been 
called,  were  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles.  Pinkney 
often  contrived  to  kindle  up  quite  as  much  of  a 
blaze  as  Choate,  but  it  was  false  fire ;  it  did  not 
burst  from  the  theme  by  spontaneous  combustion  ; 
it  was  dry  wood  heaped  round  the  subject  and  then 
set  on  fire,  but  the  subject  itself  never  caught ;  it  did 
not,  as  in  Choate's  case,  flame  up  from  the  depths 
of  his  own  genius  ;  a  genius  which  takes  possession 
of  the  theme,  and  makes  it  all  its  own.  Choate's 
dreamy  though  disciplined  genius,  idealizes,  by  ac- 
16* 


186  THE   BAR. 

tually  seeming  to  recreate  the  subject  and  to  give  it 
actually  a  poetic  body  and  a  soul  of  fire ;  Pinkney 
puts  all  his  ideality  on  the  outside,  skin-deep  only. 
Choate  seems  to  fire  it  all  up  in  the  forges  of  his 
mind,  and  then  looking  at  it  as  actually  a  radiant  ob- 
ject, he  only  describes  it  with  literal  accuracy  as  it 
seems  to  him  ;  Pinkney,  on  the  other  hand,  sees  it  all 
the  time  just  as  it  is  ;  his  eye  is  not  really  "  in  a  fine 
frenzy  rolling,"  but  he  is  determined  that  it  shall  ap- 
pear to  be  j  and  so,  he  deliberately  and  studiously 
covers  the  plain  subject  all  up  with  floral  or  flaming 
colorings,  so  that  hardly  a  speck  of  the  original  is 
seen.  He  had  not,  like  Choate,  an  intellect  armed 
originally  with  imagination,  where  the  severer  powers 
were  laboriously  developed  up  and  produced  out  to 
a  level  with  the  native  ideality  ;  but  it  was  directly 
the  reverse  with  him  ;  with  him  the  imagination  was 
the  disciplined  and  schooled  faculty ;  the  native 
endowment  of  a  man  who  read  "  Coke  upon  Little- 
ton" for  pleasure  must  have  been  the  absolute 
strength  and  solidity  of  his  understanding. 

But  although  utterly  deficient  in  imagination,  in 
fancy  he  had  a  slender  gift,  which  was  forced  by  his 
literary  culture  to  a  wonderful  degree  of  excellence. 
The  metaphors,  allusions,  similes,  and  thousand 
flowers  of  rhetoric  which  he  garnered  up  from  the 
broad  parterre  of  his  "fancy-reading"  he  scattered 
over  the  dust  of  his  legal  highway  till  it  seemed  as 
if,  amid  his  modulated  tones  and  his  myriad  tropes, 
he  moved  on  roses  to  a  chorus  of  plumed  birds. 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  187 

Judge  Story  said  that  sometimes  when  speaking  to 
the  Court,  but  at  the  crowd  (composed  in  large 
measure  of  the  belles  of  the  country  assembled  in 
Washington,  and  concentrating  around  him,  by 
common  consent  whenever  he  argued),  he  would 
lead  off  the  immediate  line  of  argument  into  a  sort 
of  ornamental  interlude  of  twenty  or  thirty  minutes, 
in  which  he  would  hold  every  one  spell-bound  by  his 
energetic  and  diverse  fancies  ;  and  at  the  close,  such 
was  his  transcendent  fascination  they  all  sat  trans- 
fixed, and  taking  a  long  breath  would  say  involun- 
tarily, "  How  beautiful ! "  But  with  his  fancy,  as  with 
his  attempts  at  imagination,  it  was  all  artificial ;  got 
up,  outside  work ;  it  rarely  touched  the  core  of  the 
subject. 

It  was  an  epigrammatic  criticism  of  that  profound 
though  youthful  philosopher,  Horace  Binney  Wal- 
lace, of  Philadelphia,  upon  Bolingbroke  and  Burke, 
that  the  former  shaped  his  thought  into  ornament, 
the  latter  shaped  his  ornament  around  his  thought ; 
that  is,  the  workmanship  of  the  one  was  chased  sil- 
ver, the  other  varnished  veneering ;  but  the  point  of 
this  comment  is  more  effective  than  its  truth,  for  the 
opinion  as  applied  to  Burke,  is  but  partly  correct. 
Burke  was  sometimes,  it  is  true,  open  to  this  objec- 
tion ;  even  then  the  ornament  which  he  put  on  was 
often  of  more  value  than  the  subject  it  embellished ; 
but  generally,  as  has  been  well  said,  "  he  has  his 
reins  on  every  adjective."  One  never  feels  in  follow- 
ing Burke  through  the  broad  orbit  of  his  excursions 


188  THE   BAR. 

from  the  immediate  matter  in  hand,  that  he  ceases 
to  be  as  instructive  as  he  is  delightful ;  his  intellect 
never  for  a  moment  strikes  its  flag,  either  to  the 
demands  of  the  external  senses  or  the  impulses  of 
his  Eastern  passion;  such  was  the  learned  poetry 
of  his  mind,  that  the  thought  and  the  figure  rose 
on  its  horizon  in  one  birth,  —  a  dual  unity.  But 
Pinkney's  thought  does  not  take  rank  with  either 
of  these,  any  more  .than  with  Choate's  ;  it  does  not 
shine  like  Burke's  with  ornament  of  rare  intrinsic 
preciousness,  nor  is  it  like  Bolingbroke's,  at  the 
same  time  solid  and  splendid ;  you  will  search 
vainly  for  philosophical  generalizations,  or  hurried 
interlocutory  suggestions  showing  deep  general 
thoughts  which  the  orator  has  only  time  to  allude 
to  in  passing,  or  charming  combinations  of  words 
which  you  will  lay  up  in  memory  as  things  of 
beauty  to  give  you  joy  for  ever  ;  everything  is 
calculated  to  produce  its  impression  in  his  arguj 
ment,  under  the  combined  force  of  great  technical 
lore  and  tremendous  physical  energy.  Hugh  S. 
Legare",  that  brilliant  civilian,  whose  early  death, 
while  head  of  the  Department  of  State  under  Presi- 
dent Tyler,  this  country  no  less  than  South  Carolina 
deplores,  has  presented  some  of  the  best  views  on 
Demosthenes,  —  the  pattern  argufier,  —  of  all  the 
modern  writers,  not  excepting  Lord  Brougham  or 
the  erudite  German  Wacksmuth.  And  the  two 
capital  qualities  of  the  Greek  speaker,  after  his 
"action,"  upon  which  he  expatiates,  are  first,  his 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  189 

entire  and  unswerving  devotion  to  the  immediate 
subject  in  hand,  never  sacrificing  a  word  to  mere 
embellishment ;  and  then  the  fact,  that  he  never  or 
very  rarely  uses  any  absolute  imagery,  any  positive 
metaphor  ;  but  all  his  ornament  is  in  the  very  consti- 
ution  of  the  thought,  and  the  sentiment  which  inter- 
fuses and  penetrates  it.  Here  was  the  capital  fault  of 
Pinkney,  or  rather  here  it  would  have  been  if  he  had 
designed  to  submit  a  single  thing  he  did  to  any  care- 
ful re-observation  ;  there  were  no  carvings  or  mould- 
ings in  the  solid  piece  of  his  work ;  the  stucco  and 
fresco  on  its  mere  surface  looked  well  enough  at  a 
little  distance  for  all  the  eifect  he  wanted.  If  you 
examined  it  closely,  you  could  always  trace  the  line 
sharply  and  boldly  defined  between  the  abstract  logic 
and  the  concrete  forms  crystallized  around  it. 

There  is,  however,  a  broad  and  marked  distinction 
to  be  noticed  between  the  words  in  which  his  most 
abstract  argument  in  its  last  analysis,  as  well  as  his 
gaudiest  image  in  its  most  peacock-like  parapherna- 
lia, was  expressed,  and  the  metaphors  and  examples 
into  which  those  words  were  woven.  His  mere 
words  were  apt,  choice,  and  beautiful ;  his  combina- 
tion of  these  words  was  intensely  extravagant  and 
far-fetched.  There  were  indeed,  as  the  same  experi- 
enced forensic  critic  of  whom  we  have  before  spoken 
noticed,  "  two  distinct  strata  in  Pirikney's  composi- 
tion, —  his  diction  and  his  chaos  of  confused  meta- 
phor " ;  the  former  for  oratorio  purposes  was  of  the 
very  first  order,  but  the  latter  was  made  up  of  a 


190  THE   BAK. 

confused  hodge-podge  of  gorgons,  hydras,  and  chi- 
meras dire.  What  may  be  called  "  Pinkney's  Mythol- 
ogy," was  the  most  bizarre  aggregation  of  images 
from  the  classical  dictionary  which  could  be  lumped 
up  and  pounded  together  by  a  sonorous  voice,  and  a 
tremendous  impetuosity  in  delivery. 

The  famous  argument  on  the  case  of  "  The  Ne- 
reid" was  one  remarkable  for  the  importance  of  the 
principle  for  which  he  contended,  no  less  than  for 
the  astonishing  symbols  with  which  he  startled  the 
heavy  air  of  the  Supreme  Court.  And  as  the  best 
description  of  his  style,  we  shall  state  the  case  and 
present  one  of  the  mildest  extracts  from  it.  The  case 
deserves  special  mention  also,  as  one  in  which  the 
decision  of  the  Court,  adverse  to  Pinkney,  was  no 
less  opposed  to  common  sense  than  it  was  to  the 
English  decision  in  the  admiralty,  and  to  the  opinions 
of  many  of  the  first  American  lawyers.  Indeed,  one 
of  the  greatest  of  them  told  us  once  that  he  consid- 
ered Pinkney  to  have  been  clearly  right  in  his  posi- 
tion, and  the  Court  as  clearly  wrong.  The  circum- 
stances on  which  the  case  arose  happened  during 
our  war  with  England,  in  1812.  The  Nereid,  an 
armed  enemy's  vessel,  was  captured  in  resisting 
search  by  our  privateer,  the  "  Governor  Tompkins." 
The  goods  on  board  were  condemned  as  prize  of 
war;  The  claimant  of  the  goods  was  one  Pinto,  a 
resident  merchant  of  Buenos  Ayres.  Being  in  Lon- 
don, he  had  chartered  the  British  armed  and  com- 
missioned ship  in  question,  to  carry  his  goods  to 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  191 

Buenos  Ayres ;  she  sailed  under  British  convoy,  from 
which  however  she  got  separated,  and  was  taken, 
after  a  short  action,  off  Madeira.  The  cause  was 
argued  by  Emmett  and  Hoffman  for  the  claimant, 
and  by  Dallas  (Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under 
Madison)  and  Pinkney  for  the  captors. 

Pinkney's  argument  was,  that  Pinto's  claim  to  the 
goods  ought  to  be  rejected  on  account  of  his  un- 
neutral  conduct  in  hiring  and  lading  his  goods  on 
board  of  an  armed  enemy's  vessel,  which  actually 
resisted  search.  Emmett  in  his  argument  had  urged 
the  court  to  look  with  sympathy  upon  the  neutral 
Pinto  losing  his  all,  as  a  desolate  and  virtually  ship- 
wrecked foreigner,  and  in  reply  to  this,  Pinkney 
opened  his  exordium  ;  which  is  not  at  all  liable  to 
the  objections  which  are  being  considered,  but  is  in 
a  way,  for  him,  singularly  grave  and  appropriate. 
He  says :  "  I  shall  at  the  outset  dismiss  from  the  cause 
all  which  has  been  suggested  as  to  the  claimant 
himself.  I  am  willing  to  admit  that  a  Christian 
judicature  may  dare  to  feel  for  a  desolate  foreigner, 
who  stands  before  it  for  the  fortunes  of  himself  and 
his  house.  I  am  ready  to  concede  that  when  a 
friendly  and  a  friendless  stranger  sues  for  the  resto- 
ration of  his  all  to  human  justice,  she  may  some- 
times wish  to  lay  aside  a  portion  of  her  sternness,  to 
take  him  by  the  hand,  and,  exchanging  her  character 
for  that  of  mercy,  to  raise  him  up  from  an  abyss  of 
doubt  and  fear  to  a  pinnacle  of  hope  and  joy.  But, 
in  the  balance  of  the  law,  Mr.  Pinto's  claim  is 


192  THE   BAR. 

lighter  than  a  feather  shaken  from  a  linnet's  wing. 
I  throw  into  the  opposite  scale  the  ponderous  claim 
of  War ;  I  throw  into  the  same  scale  the  venerable 
code  of  universal  law,  before  which  it  is  the  duty 
of  this  Court,  great  as  are  its  titles  to  reverence,  to 
bow  down  with  submission.  I  throw  into  the  same 
scale  a  solemn  treaty.  In  a  word,  I  throw  into  that 
scale  the  rights  of  belligerent  America ;  and  as  em- 
bodied with  them,  the  rights  of  these  captors  by 
whose  efforts  the  naval  exertions  of  this  government 
have  been  seconded,  until  our  once  despised  and 
drooping  flag  has  been  made  to  wave  in  triumph 
where  neither  France  nor  Spain  could  venture  to 
show  a  prow.  You  may  call  these  rights  by  what- 
ever name  you  please.  You  may  call  them  iron 
rights.  I  care  not.  It  is  enough  for  me  that  they 
are  rights.  It  is  more  than  enough  for  me  that  they 
come  before  you  encircled  and  adorned  by  the  lau- 
rels which  we  have  torn  from  the  brow  of  the  naval 
genius  of  England ;  that  they  come  before  you  rec- 
ommended and  endeared  and  consecrated  by  a  thou- 
sand recollections  which  it  would  be  baseness  and 
folly  not  to  cherish ;  and  that  they  are  mingled  in 
fancy,  and  in  fact,  with  all  the  elements  of  our  future 
greatness." 

This  passage  is  in  his  rarest  and  best  manner,  and 
is  bravely  eloquent.  But  when  he  comes  to  grapple 
with  the  immediate  issue  at  Bar,  he  steams  up  thus: 
"  The  boundaries  which  separate  war  from  neutral- 
ity are  sometimes  more  faint  and  obscure  than  could 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  193 

be  desired  ;  but  there  never  were  any  boundaries  be- 
tween them,  or  they  must  have  long  since  perished, 
if  neutrality  can,  as  this  new  and  most  licentious 
creed  declares,  surround  itself  with  as  much  of  hos- 
tile equipment  as  it  can  afford  to  purchase ;  if  it  can 
set  forth  upon  the  great  common  of  the  world,  un- 
der the  tutelary  auspices,  and  armed  with  the  power 
of,  one  belligerent  bidding  defiance  to  and  entering 
the  lists  of  battle  with  the  other,  and  at  the  same 
moment  assume  the  aspect  and  robe  of  peace,  and 
challenge  all  the  immunities  which  belong  only  to 
submission. 

"  The  idea  is  formed  by  an  unexampled  reconcilia- 
tion of  mortal  antipathies.  It  exhibits  such  a  rare 
discordia  rerum,  such  a  stupendous  society  of  jarring 
elements,  or  (to  use  an  expression  of  Tacitus)  of  res 
insociabiles,  that  it  throws  into  the  shade  the  wildest 
fictions  of  poetry.  I  entreat  your  Honors  to  endeav- 
or a  personification  of  this  motley  notion,  and  to 
forgive  me  for  presuming  to  intimate  that  if,  after 
you  have  achieved  it,  you  pronounce  the  notion  to 
be  correct,  you  will  have  gone  far  to  prepare  us,  by 
the  authority  of  your  opinion,  to  receive  as  credible 
history  the  worst  parts  of  the  mythology  of  the 
Pagan  world.  The  Centaur  and  the  Proteus  of  an- 
tiquity will  be  fabulous  no  longer.  The  prosopopoeia 
to  which  I  invite  you  is  scarcely  indeed  in  the  power 
of  Fancy  in  her  most  riotous  and  capricious  mood, 
when  she  is  best  able  and  most  disposed  to  force  in- 
compatibilities into  fleeting  and  shadowy  combina- 
17 


194  THE  BAR. 

tion ;  but  if  you  can  accomplish  it,  will  give  you 
something  like  the  kid  and  the  lion,  the  lamb  and 
the  tiger  portentously  incorporated,  with  ferocity  and 
meekness  co-existent  in  the  result,  and  equal  as 
motives  of  action.  It  will  give  you  a  modern  Ama- 
zon, more  strangely  constituted  than  those  with 
whom  ancient  fable  peopled  the  borders  of  the 
Thermodon, —  her  voice  compounded  of  the  tremen- 
dous shout  of  the  Minerva  of  Homer,  and  the  gentle 
accents  of  a  shepherdess  of  Arcadia,  —  with  all  the 
faculties  and  inclinations  of  turbulent  and  masculine 
war,  and  all  the  retiring  modesty  of  virgin  peace. 
We  shall  have  in  one  personage  the  pharetrata 
Camilla  of  the  jEneid  and  the  Peneian  maid  of  the 
Metamorphosis.  We  shall  have  Neutrality  soft  and 
gentle  and  defenceless  in  herself,  yet  clad  in  the 
panoply  of  her  warlike  neighbors ;  with  the  frown 
of  defiance  upon  her  brow  and  the  smile  of  concilia- 
tion upon  her  lip  ;  with  the  spear  of  Achilles  in 
one  hand,  and  a  lying  protestation  of  innocence  and 
helplessness  unfolded  in  the  other.  Nay,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  so  bold  a  figure  in  a  mere  legal  discussion, 
we  shall  have  the  branch  of  olive  entwined  around 
the  bolt  of  Jove,  and  Neutrality  in  the  act  of  hurling 
the  latter  under  the  deceitful  cover  of  the  former. 

"  I  must  take  the  liberty  to  assert,  that,  if  this  be 
law,  it  is  not  that  sort  of  law  which  Hooker  speaks 
of,  when,  with  the  splendid  magnificence  of  Eastern 
metaphor,  he  says  that  *  her  seat  is  the  bosom  of 
God,  and  her  voice  the  harmony  of  the  world.' " 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY. 

The  extravagant  intensity  of  these  passages,  one 
sees  at  a  glance ;  but  what  must  be  thought  of  the 
power  of  that  orator  who  could  make  them  tell  on 
the  grave  Supreme  Court,  shut  up  habitually  amid 
parchments  and  precedents  and  still  air,  as  if  in  the 
centre  of  a  pyramid  of  the  Nile !     And  what  shall 
we  say  when  we  observe  that  even  the  austere  Chief 
Justice,  John  Marshall,  in  delivering  the  judgment 
of  the  court,  felt  himself  roused  to  an  unwonted  ex- 
citement, and  pronounced  his  opinion  in  words  which 
now  sparkle  on  the  arid  table-land  of  Cranch's  Re- 
ports !     In  that  decision,  speaking  of  Pinkney,  the 
Chief  Justice  said :  "  With  a  pencil  dipped  in  the 
most  vivid  colors  and  guided  by  the  hand  of  a  mas- 
ter, a  splendid  portrait  has  been  drawn ;  exhibiting 
this  vessel  and   her  freighter   as  forming  a  single 
figure  composed  of  the  most  discordant  materials  of 
peace  and  war.     So  exquisite  was  the  skill  of  the 
artist,  so  dazzling  the  garb  in  which  the  figure  was 
presented,  that  it  required  the  exercise  of  that  cold 
investigating  faculty,  which  ought  always  to  belong 
to  those  who  sit  on  this  Bench,  to  discover  its  only 
imperfection,  —  its  want  of  resemblance." 

Judge  Story,  however,  thought  there  was  a  resem- 
blance, and  gave  from  the  Bench  a  dissenting  opin- 
ion ;  and  he  afterwards  declared  that  he  never  in 
his  life  was  more  satisfied  that  the  Court  was  wrong. 
On  a  popular  audience,  this  Asian  luxuriance  in 
which  Pinkney  indulged  would  naturally  have  been 
very  effective;  but  amid  the  moss-covered  monu- 


196  THE   BAR. 

rnents  of  the  gravest  judgment-seat  in  the  country 
if  not  in  the  world,  the  musty  books  of  buff,  and 
the  grayhaired  ministers  of  the  law,  to  make  it  as 
successful  as  with  the  multitude,  —  this  was  a  tri- 
umph worthy  the  leafy  chaplet. 

It  is  indeed  singular  how  the  popular  and  even 
the  uneducated  ear  responds  to  classic  touches. 
Sargeant  S.  Prentiss  used  to  say,  in  stumping  Mis- 
sissippi, (that  political  campaign  in  which  he  so  dash- 
ingly vindicated  his  original  right  to  his  seat  in  the 
National  House  of  Representatives,  by  gaining  a 
triumphal  re-election  to  it,  in  spite  of  the  United 
States  Government  influence  combining  with  his 
adversaries,)  that  he  found  the  most  unlettered  throng 
beyond  the  Mississippi  River  would  thrill  and  thrill 
again  to  scholarly  allusions ;  and  when  everything 
else  failed  to  stimulate  and  sustain  his  audience's 
attention,  he  said,  "  The  '  shirt  of  Nessus '  and  the 
'  Labors  of  Hercules '  would  always  do  the  business." 
But  the  miracle  in  Pinkney's  case  was,  that  he  made 
the  judicial  ear  for  the  time  being  a  popular  ear  ;  for 
the  judge  is  usually  as  inimical  to  rhetoric  as  the  an- 
tagonistic elements  which  Pinkney  so  violently  con- 
trasted in  this  speech  are  hostile  to  each  other. 

To  pathos,  and  all  that  appeals  to  the  more  deli- 
cate sensibilities,  he  could  lay  little  claim.  It  was 
not  given  to  him  to  unlock  the  sealed  fountain  of 
tears,  or  by  tenderness  to  seduce  the  judgment  from 
its  inflexible  integrity.  That  great  class  of  cases 
growing  out  of  "  the  loss  ofa  the  wife's  services,"  in 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  197 

the  fiction  of  the  English  law,  like  the  well-known 
case  of  Massy  vs.  Marquis  of  Headfort,  in  which 
Curran  expatiated  against  the  seducer  with  such 
picturesqueness  of  passion,  or  that  equally  famous 
case  of  Howard  vs.  Bingham,  in  which  Erskine 
almost  metamorphosed  the  seducer  of  domestic 
purity  into  its  defender,  he  never  had  power  suc- 
cessfully to  venture  upon.  He  declaimed  and  rea- 
soned and  enforced.  His  appeal  primarily  lay  to 
the  head,  and  only  very  remotely  to  the  heart.  As 
some  one  said  of  old  Samuel  Dexter,  "  he  had  a 
great  deal  of  that  kind  of  eloquence  which  struts 
round  the  heart,  but  never  gets  into  it."  Over  the 
passions,  strictly  speaking,  at  least  all  but  the  most 
violent  and  inflammatory  sort,  he  had  scarce  any 
control  but  what  arose  from  the  effect  of  a  resonant 
voice,  and  a  foaming  dogmatism  and  pomp  of  utter- 
ance, upon  the  nerves  of  his  astonished  audience. 

The  range  of  the  grand  sentiments,  the  magnanim- 
ities of  the  soul,  he  could  far  better  command  than 
any  gushes  of  tenderness.  He  always  seemed  in- 
spired by  a  vehement  scorn  of  the  petty  and  the 
narrow  in  man,  and  lifted  up  by  an  habitual  con- 
templation of  his  larger  ambitions  and  loftier  emo- 
tions. He  was  infinitely  above  the  small  chicane 
and  crawling  craft  of  the  little  people  of  the  Bar. 
When  he  ranged  into  line  for  controversy,  it  was  with 
all  his  colors  set,  his  great  guns  out,  pride  on  the 
prow,  and  terror  at  the  helm. 

His  voice  and  manner  at  the  meridian  and  latter 
17* 


198  THE   BAR. 

part  of  his  career  was  entirely  changed  from  what  it 
was  in  his  youthful  performances  ;  then  his  tones 
were  euphonious  and  his  action  forcible,  but  quite 
moderate  and  not  ungraceful;  but  afterwards  his 
action  was  immensely  vehement,  and  his  tones  often 
harsh  and  sometimes  screaming;  so  much  so  that 
he  was  apt  as  he  commenced  a  speech  to  repel  and 
distress  and  dishearten  the  hearer ;  but  when  at 
length  he  swept  out  into  the  main  channel  of  his 
oratoric  course,  that  hearer,  be  he  who  he  might,  felt 
irresistibly  moved  on  with  the  full,  proud  impulse  of 
his  power.  He  was  extremely  abrupt,  doing  every- 
thing apparently  to  startle  the  attention ;  and  his 
voice,  which  he  had  under  singular  control,  pitched 
about  from  its  high  keys  to  its  lower  notes  in  a  sud- 
den and  most  surprising  manner.  This  abrupt  as- 
cent and  depression  of  his  tones  was  so  marked  that 
it  was  not  difficult  to  imitate  it ;  and  we  have  been 
told  by  a  member  of  the  Baltimore  Bar,  that  there 
was  for  a  long  time  a  young  man  there  who  could 
copy  Pinkney's  delivery  so  as  to  convey  quite  a  cor- 
rect notion  of  him.  The  pressure  of  his  vehemence 
upon  his  voice  robbed  it  of  much  of  the  rich  reso- 
nancy  which,  under  gentler  treatment,  would  have 
softened  its  asperity.  As  we  once  heard  an  Italian 
man-of-music  describe  a  noted  tenor  singer,  —  he 
said,  his  straining  had  taken  "  all  the  velvet  off"  ;  and 
then  he  rubbed  his  arm  along  the  sleeve  of  his  coat 
as  if  rubbing  all  the  nap  off  the  cloth,  to  illustrate  in 
this  way  the  threadbare  quality  of  the  vocal  subject 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  199 

of  his  critique.  Pinkney's  voice,  however,  had  con- 
siderable compass  and  force.  He  had  a  great  idea 
of  the  mechanical  as  well  as  intellectual  power  of 
the  human  voice  over  the  sensibilities  and  faculties 
of  hearers,  and  he  disciplined  his  with  exact  care. 
During  all  his  foreign  residence  he  constantly  con- 
tinued the  practice  of  private  declamation,  both 
as  a  gratification  and  a  discipline ;  quite  after  the 
Roman  oratorio  custom ;  for  Pliny  relates  in  his  Let- 
ters that  it  was  often  his  and  his  friends'  custom,  to 
declaim  for  an  hour  before  dinner,  as  an  elegant  ac- 
complishment and  a  beneficial  exercise.  But  Pink- 
ney's nature  not  being  mild,  he  had  never  trained  his 
tones  to  those  sliding  sinkings  and  "  harmonics  "  as 
elocutionists  would  term  them,  which  soften  the 
high-pitched  utterance  of  raving  ardors,  and  whose 
agreeable  effect  upon  the  senses,  as  it  were  sets  rain- 
bows on  the  storm  of  earnestness. 

But  yet  Nature  will  assert  her  dominion,  even 
through  faulty  instruments  of  expression  ;  and  such 
was  the  beautiful  though  boisterous  flow  of  his 
thought,  and  he  was  so  furiously  in  earnest,  that  he 
somehow  did  contrive  to  wear  away  the  first  impres- 
sion of  harshness,  and  absolutely  to  charm  the  ear ; 
for  all  the  belles  of  the  city  could  not  have  hung  en- 
tranced, as  they  did  for  hours,  on  his  accents  had 
they  been  those  of  a  mere  harsh  mouther  of  good 
syllables.  We  have  heard  Daniel  Webster  deliver  a 
great  argument  on  a  constitutional  point  in  that 
same  Supreme  Court,f  which  settled  principles  as 


200  THE  BAH. 

universal  as  the  orb,  and  as  profoundly  interesting 
as  the  laws  of  a  planetary  system,  and  there  was  no 
want  of  historical  allusion,  and  that  general  tone  of 
grandeur  which  was  inseparable  from  him ;  but, 
nevertheless,  a  full  crowd  of  ladies  who  were  in  at- 
tendance grew,  as  the  morning  passed  away,  small 
by  degrees  and  satisfactorily  slim ;  while,  next  day, 
Henry  Clay,  on  a  cheap  case,  and  with  common- 
place stuff  of  talk,  packed  up  the  fair  crowd  till 
they  seemed  almost  hanging  by  their  eyelids  from 
the  heavy  capitals  of  the  pillars  ;  and,  what  was 
more,  he  kept  them  there  four  mortal  hours  en- 
chanted by  his  witchery  of  speech.  Somehow, 
therefore,  Pinkney  must  have  got  hold  of  the  popu- 
lar senses  ;  and  we  think  it  was  by  his  unbridled  and 
sympathetic  earnestness  and  spirit.  No  one  who 
never  heard  him  can  realize  his  tremendous  impetu- 
osity. He  used  every  engine  of  energy  for  effect, 
which  he  could  devise.  He  spoke  with  all  his 
"  might,  power,  authority,  and  amity,"  as  Lord  Ba- 
con says ;  and  he  seemed  not  only  to  be  able  by  his 
splendid  and  exact  vocabulary  to  say  what  he  meant, 
but  to  mean  every  word  which  he  said. 

He  used,  we  have  heard,  often  to  rub  his  body  with 
a  stimulating  ointment,  that  the~physical  excitement 
might  communicate  its  glow  to  all  the  faculties  in 
speaking ;  such  and  so  carefully  got  up  were  the 
dynamics  of  his  drama ;  and  thus,  in  a  double  sense, 
the  magnificent  Pinkney  stood  in  the  judicial  arena, 
like  an  antique  Gladiator,  trained  and  actually  oiled 
for  fight. 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  201 

It  has  been  said  that  no  man  north  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line  can  be  of  so  uniformly  warm  a 
temperament  as  to  be  able  to  make  a  great  speech 
without  external  aids ;  either  opium,  brandy,  strong 
tea,  hot  water,  or  something.  And  when  Sir  Henry 
Bulwer,  at  the  close  of  his  ambassadorship  in  Amer- 
ica, made  his  very  successful  speech  at  the  dinner  of 
the  Press  in  New  York,  it  was  whispered  that 
Nature's  flagging  energies  were  materially  recruited 
by  art;  not  more  so  than  was  perfectly  legitimate, 
but  sufficiently  so  to  illustrate  the  proposition.  And 
of  Lord  Brougham,  the  bitter  scandal  was  whispered 
in  England,  that,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  great 
speech  on  the  Reform  Bill,  —  that  great  speech,  which 
Earl  Grey  told  Charles  Sumner  was  equal  to  any 
speech  of  England's  Parliament,  —  where  he  said, 
"  My  Lords,  on  my  bended  knees  I  entreat  you  not  to 
reject  this  Bill,"  his  eloquent  Lordship  sank  upon  the 
wool-sack  from  a  combined  motive  of  oratoric  effect, 
and  the  necessities  of  a  balance  wavering  with  the 
mounting  of  his  "artificial  aids  "  into  his  head. 

Whether  this  be  literally  so  or  not,  these  current 
rumors  usually  have  some  foundation,  and  many 
men  in  the  North  do  doubtless  avail  themselves  of 
stimulants  to  produce  a  temporary  blaze  of  mind,  to 
the  ultimate  ruin  of  mind  and  body.  Pinkney,  how- 
ever, taking  his  stimulant  thus  on  the  outside,  never 
found  that  it  hurt  him ;  and  it  certainly  roused  him 
wonderfully.  A  celebrated  man  and  keen  observer 
of  oratory  once  told  us,  that  he  saw  Pinkney  in  a 


202  THE  BAR. 

famous  argument  so  intemperately  excited,  that, 
although  addressing  the  Court,  he  turned  right  round 
in  his  tempest  of  thoughts,  and  with  his  back  point- 
blank  to  the  Judges,  and  his  arms  outstretched  above 
his  head  to  their  utmost,  his  fists  clinched  and  his 
mouth  all  but  in  a  foam,  he  screamed  out  his  prop- 
osition at  the  very  top  of  his  voice.  But  he  did  it 
successfully.  No  one  was  shocked,  every  one  was 
carried  with  him,  and  success  is  the  test  of  oratoric 
audacity.  When  Burke  drew  his  dagger  in  the 
Commons  and  flung  it  on  the  floor,  the  entire  failure 
of  effect  in  the  execution  showed  that  the  concep- 
tion was  a  flat  mistake ;  but  Pinkney  in  his  out- 
bursts .always  succeeded.  He  never  made  a  mis- 
fire. 

It  was  a  characteristic  of  Erskine,  that  he  would 
examine  the  room  in  which  he  was  to  speak,  and 
endeavor  to  plan  a  cast  of  his  situation  and  style  of 
address  according  to  it.  Somewhat  in  the  same 
way  Pinkney  would  contrive  theatrical  effects  of 
situation  and  entrance,  and  the  more  anticipation 
that  could  be  roused  the  less  he  shrank  and  the  more 
he  liked  it.  He  always  wanted  to  come  forward 
like  the  tournament  champion,  to  the  flaunt  of  ban- 
ners and  the  blare  of  trumpets. 

He  had  several  little  traits  of  gesture  and  person 
quite  noticeable.  One  was  to  stick  his  foot  up  on 
the  round  of  a  chair,  as  he  spoke,  and  move  his 
hand  and  arm  forward  and  back  on  a  line  with  his 
knee;  and  as  his  temper  waxed  furious  and  fast, 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  203 

his  arm  went  faster  and  stronger  in  its  line.  And 
another  dramatic  singularity  of  his  was,  to  get  his 
hand  under  the  skirt  of  his  coat  and  tilt  his  coat- 
tails  about  with  a  decidedly  unhappy  effect.  In  al- 
lusion to  this,  some  one  remarked,  to  a  grandson  of 
his,  we  believe,  that  a  certain  Maryland  lawyer  of 
much  note,  who  knew  and  still  survives  Pinkney, 
was  very  like  him.  «  O  yes,"  said  the  sharp  youth, 
darting  at  the  sole  point  of  identity  between  the  two, 
"he  puts  his  hand  under  his  coat-tail,  just  like 
grandfather ! " 

He  was  very  nervous  about  any  noisy  interruption 
or  confusion  while  speaking.  In  the  last  argument  he 
ever  made,  there  was  a  slight  but  protracted  noise  at 
the  door  of  the  court-room.  It  evidently  vexed  him. 
He  stopped,  then  started,  stopped  again,  and  at  last 
said,  "  I  will  wait  till  silence  can  be  restored."  A 
grim  smile  passed  over  the  iron  face  of  Webster, 
who,  as  the  adverse  counsel,  sat  near.  Him  it  would 
hardly  have  disturbed  in  a  deep  logical  process,  if  a 
little  earthquake  had  yawned  before  his  chair. 

Pinkney  spoke  and  acted  and  looked  in  Court 
like  an  acknowledged  autocrat  of  advocates.  His 
manner  to  youth  was  encouraging,  but  to  his  adver- 
saries of  equal  standing  at  the  Bar  it  was  defiant  in 
the  extreme.  As  he  moved  about  among  his  com- 
peers in  years  with  menacing  front  and  lowering  eye, 
he  seemed  to  feel  utterly  careless  of  propitiating  any- 
body. William  Wirt  said  his  whole  manner  was 
alert  and  guarded,  and  that  he  had  a  crusty  precis- 


204  THE   BAK. 

ion  in  his  ways  ;  and  we  have  been  told  by  a  distin- 
guished living  lawyer  of  Baltimore,  a  young  man  in 
Pinkney's  time,  that  he  impressed  him  as  a  man  of 
bad  temper ;  and  that  in  consultation  with  him,  as 
one  of  junior  counsel,  he  found  that  Pinkney  would 
give  his  associate  counsel  no  aid,  but  would  drain 
them  dry  as  hay.  This  "bad  temper"  look,  though, 
must  have  resulted  from  his  dogmatic  enunciation 
of  views  of  law,  which  he  had  mastered  as  far  as 
anybody  on  earth  could  master  them.  Henry  A. 
Wise,  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  declared  that  Sar- 
geant  S.  Prentiss  looked  while  he  was  speaking 
like  a  glorious  child  telling  its  story  with  rapid  but 
infantile  rapture.  Pinkney  looked  like  no  beaming 
child,  "  the  smile  that  it  was  born  with  lingering 
yet,"  but  like  a  stern,  resolved  prize-fighter ;  not  a 
modern  prize-fighter  of  the  Tom  Hyer  order;  but 
rather  the  ancient  athlete,  victor  in  a  hundred  fights, 
with  a  port  of  arrogant  pride,  as  of  one  who  knew 
that  in  his  own  field  of  action,  "  at  his  right  hand 
sat  Victory  eagle-winged." 

It  must  not  be  inferred,  from  any  allusion  to  his 
positive  manner,  that  he  was  surly  or  vulgarly  coarse 
and  bullying.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  fully  up  to 
all  stated  conventionalities,  and  rather  formally  gen- 
tlemanly. He  had  the  European  manner.  He  had 
been  too  much  in  the  atmosphere  of  princes,  and 
the  painted  palaces  of  the  first  courts  in  the  world, 
to  be  uniformly  uncouth  or  gauche.  His  courtly 
dignity  of  address  was  a  lesson  to  some  of  our 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  205 

would-be  great  men,  that  a  Hottentot  boorishness  of 
manner  is  no  indication  of  manliness  of  mind.  For 
you  could  not  help  feeling  as  you  heard  him  that  his 
courtliness  of  manner  veiled  and  softened  a  panoply 
of  invulnerable  mail. 

But  able  as  he  was  by  his  vast  and  various  abili- 
ties to  maintain  this  Papal  autocracy  of  mien,  he 
was  still  not  unassailable  by  one  weapon ;  that  blade 
was  irony.  And  it  was  reserved  for  John  Randolph 
of  Roanoke  to  administer  a  rebuke  to  him  which  he 
felt  as  deeply,  as  it  was  cordially  but  courteously 
given  by  that  master  of  sarcastic  point.  In  a  de- 
bate in  the  House  of  Representatives,  after  his  return 
from  Europe,  Pinkney  had  spoken ;  and  as  the  sub- 
ject was  the  treaty-making  power  of  the  government, 
he  felt  fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  he  was  William 
Pinkney,  the  accredited  envoy  to  half  a  dozen  courts 
in  Europe,  Attorney- General  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  acknowledged  "  expert "  in  international 
law.  Feeling  all  this  to  his  fingers'  ends,  he  exhib- 
ited even  an  unwonted  confidence  and  arrogance  of 
assertion.  Randolph,  in  reply,  after  presenting  his 
own  views,  remarked :  "  Mr.  Speaker,  these  views 
have  been  questioned  by  a  member  of  the  House  from 
Maryland,"  —  here  he  looked  over  to  Pinkney,  whom 
he  knew  personally,  as  well  as  the  whole  country 
knew  him  publicly,  and  then  added,  as  if  doubtingly, 
—  "I  believe  he  is  from  Maryland,  Sir."  There  was 
a  universal  sensation.  Pinkney  felt  the  keen  barb 
of  the  delicate  reproof.  But  he  was  too  large-souled 
18 


206  THE   BAR. 

to  take  umbrage,  and  perhaps  he  even  profited  from 
the  lesson.  For,  with  all  his  despotic  self-assertion, 
no  man  was  more  ready  to  acknowledge  a  fault  or 
repair  a  wrong  to  another's  feelings. 

When  the  Irish  exile,  Emmett,  and  he  first  met  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  the  New  Yorkers  thought  they 
could  rather  pit  their  adopted  Counsellor  against  the 
great  Baltimorean.  Pinkney  was  therefore  put  up  to 
his  mettle  ;  and  in  the  case  of  "  The  Mary,"  argued 
at  the  same  term  of  the  Court  with  "  The  Nereid  " 
before  spoken  of,  he  bore  down  on  Emmett,  who 
really  was  no  match  for  him,  with  rather  a  con- 
temptuous air  of  triumph.  When  Emmett  carne  to 
.open  the  succeeding  case  of  "  The  Nereid,"  he  alluded 
to  the  peculiar  disadvantages  under  which  he  ad- 
vanced,—  an  exile  from  his  native  land,  a  wanderer, 
the  law  that  of  a  new  country,  the  scene  one  of  uni- 
versal attention  and  expectancy,  and  the  adversary 
William  Pinkney,  a  name  known  in  both  hemis- 
pheres ;  and  "  how  shall  I,"  said  he,  "  whose  ambi- 
tion was  extinguished  in  my  youth,  now  in  my  years 
struggle  to  win  laurels  here."  When  Pinkney  was 
replying,  he  used  the  term  "  absurd "  in  his  heated 
attack  upon  his  adversaries'  argument.  He  im- 
mediately stopped  his  impetuous  headway,  and  said : 
"  I  beg  my  learned  opponents  to  pardon  the  acci- 
dental freedom  of  this  expression,  and  to  believe  that 
I  respect  them  both  too  much  to  be  willing  to  give 
umbrage  to  either.  To  one  of  them,  indeed,"  (refer- 
ring of  course  to  Emmett,)  "  I  have  heretofore  given 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  207 

unintentional  pain,  by  observations  to  which  the 
influence  of  accidental  excitement  imparted  the  ap- 
pearance of  unkind  criticism.  The  manner  in  which 
he  replied  to  those  observations  reproached  me  by  its 
forbearance  and  urbanity,  and  could  not  fail  to  hasten 
the  repentance  which  reflection  alone  would  have 
produced,  and  which  I  am  glad  to  have  so  public  an 
occasion  of  avowing.  I  offer  him  a  gratuitous  and 
cheerful  atonement,  —  cheerful  because  it  puts  me 
to  rights  with  myself,  and  because  it  is  tendered  not 
to  ignorance  and  presumption,  but  to  the  highest 
worth  in  intellect  and  morals,  enhanced  by  such  elo- 
quence as  few  may  hope  to  equal,  —  to  an  interesting 
stranger,  whom  adversity  has  tried  and  affliction 
struck  severely  to  the  heart,  —  to  an  exile  whom  any 
country  might  be  proud  to  receive,  and  every  man 
of  generous  temper  would  be  ashamed  to  offend.  I 
feel  relieved  by  this  atonement,  and  proceed  with 
more  alacrity." 

It  was  Pinkney's  uniform  and  incredible  industry 
in  his  profession  which  drove  him  abroad  upon  his 
numerous  embassies.  "  People  wonder,"  he  wrote 
to  a  friend,  "  that  I  go.  They  know  not  how  I  toil 
at  the  Bar.  They  know  not  the  anxious  days  and 
sleepless  nights  I  pass.  I  must  breathe  awhile.  The 
bow  for  ever  bent  will  break."  In  these  foreign 
exercises  and  excursions,  he  reposed  his  tired  brain, 
and  diversifying  his  scene  and  his  topics  gathered 
new  energies  for  his  tremendous  toils.  It  was  no  less 
this  "terrible  toil"  than  the  original  firmness  of  his 


208  THE   BAR. 

mental  texture  that  gave  to  his  gay  eloquence  its 
impression  of  adamantine  solidity.  To  think  and 
fee],  in  the  midst  of  all  this  luxurious  affluence  of 
speech,  that  every  line  and  point  was  based  on  foun- 
dations impregnable,  and  that,  however  bright  was 
the  bravery  of  his  decorated  display,  all  was  as  solid 
as  it  was  showy  ;  no  mousing  book-worm  more 
learned,  no  special  pleader  more  exact  in  definition 
and  true  in  inference ;  that  wild  and  rapid  as  the 
rush  was,  there  was  not  an  "  authority  "  incorrect  in 
substance  as  well  as  form,  not  a  principle  or  state- 
ment to  which  the  slowest  case-worn  plodder  could 
demur !  —  well  might  Wirt  feel  chagrined  and  cast 
down,  when  he  had  wasted  in  merriment  his  prepar- 
atory night  before  the  morning  in  which,  for  one  of 
the  first  times,  he  was  to  grapple  with  him,  and 
found  the  excess  of  preparation  with  which  Pinkney 
came  armed !  Well  might  he  exclaim,  as  he  did  on 
the  succeeding  day,  "  Would  that  I  could  argue  my 
case  with  him,  right  over  again,  once  more. !  " 

Pinkney's  preparation  for  his  speeches  was  mi- 
nutely accurate,  and  his  habit  of  oratoric  composi- 
tion was  entirely  at  war  with  our  general  American 
extemporizing  ways.  He  very  carefully  premeditated 
everything  he  said ;  not  only  as  to  the  general  order 
or  method  to  be  observed  in  treating  his  subject,  the 
authorities  to  be  relied  on,  and  the  leading  illustra- 
tive topics,  but  frequently  as  to  the  principal  pas- 
sages and  rhetorical  embellishments.  These  last  he 
sometimes  wrote  out  beforehand  ;  not  that  he  feared 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  209 

to  trust  himself  to  invent  in  speaking,  but  because 
he  agreed  with  Cicero,  that  the  habit  of  written  com- 
position is  necessary  to  a  style  of  speaking  which 
shall  be  correct  and  flexible ;  which  without  this  aid 
degenerates  into  loose  colloquialisms,  or  becomes  en- 
feebled by  tedious  and  vague  verbosity. 

In  his  natural  appearance,  when  at  ease,  there  was 
little  which  to  a  hasty  glance  announced  his  intel- 
lectual ranking  among  men.  His  form  was  not  in 
the  ordinary  intercourse  of  his  life  lifted  up  with  all 
that  majesty  of  power  which,  from  beholding  him  in 
his  oratory,  one  would  have  supposed  inseparable 
from  him,  and  which  with  William  Pitt,  whom  he  so 
much  admired,  was  such  a  part  of  him  that  if  you 
met  him  on  the  street  corner,  you  still  saw  only  the 
unbending  Prime  Minister, — the  son  of  Chatham. 
His  form  was  not  graceful,  and  his  face  seamed 
with  the  lines  of  many  labors  and  of  some  dissipa- 
tions, was  quite  heavy  and  sluggish  looking.  His  lips 
were  thick,  and  his  cheeks  hung  loose  and  flabby ;  — 
such  as  we  imagine  Buonaparte's  to  have  been,  as 
Lamartine  paints  him  in  the  review  of  his  army, 
when  worn  down  by  the  imperial  anxieties  of  the  re- 
turn from  Elba ;  —  but  his  eye  had  the  lurking  fires 
of  genius ;  that  organ,  which  is  almost  always  true  to 
talent,  was  rapid  in  its  movement,  and  beaming  with 
animation.  There  hung  about  him  also  an  appear- 
ance of  painful  voluptuousness,  rather  than  of  lonely 
drudging  studiousness.  Waldo  Emerson  makes  it 
a  part  of  his  philosophy,  that  every  man  is  abso- 
18* 


210  THE   BAR. 

lutely  entitled  to  receive  from  nature  a  fair  face  cor- 
responding with  his  inward  character ;  and  that  so 
far  as  his  countenance  varies  from  it,  so  far  it  indi- 
cates the  trifling  of  various  of  his  progenitors  with 
their  constitutions ;  "  so  far  it  tells,"  as  he  expresses 
it,  "  the  quilps  and  quirks  of  his  ancestors."  If  this 
be  so,  Pinkney's  forefathers  had  something  to  answer 
for ;  for  although  his  externals  were  good  enough, 
they  in  no  commensurate  degree  reflected  the  glori- 
ous spirit  within.  Choate's  face  is  worn  and  hag- 
gard, like  the  anxious  visage  of  Cicero,  but,  like  his, 
eminently  intellectual.  Bolingbroke's  face  and  set 
of  head  was  Periclean  in  its  patrician  majesty  of 
port,  and  Erskine's  was  singularly  agreeable,  while 
his  movements  were  said  to  suggest  the  clean-limbed 
agility  of  a  blood-horse.  But  Pinkney,  who  in  some 
respects  equalled  all  or  any  of  these  names  intel- 
lectually, was  somewhat  defrauded  of  his  Nature's 
pattern. 

For  so  great  a  man,  he  was  an  uncommon  dandy. 
He  sometimes  used  up  as  many  white  cravats  as 
Beau  Brummel,  before  he  got  one  to  tie  rightly.  We 
have  heard  a  number  as  high  even  as  thirteen  men- 
tioned by  a  relative  of  his  as  being  discarded  at 
one  time.  He  was  always  elaborately  dressed,  ruf- 
fled linen  of  undimmed  snowiness,  gold  studs,  boots 
of  irreproachable  polish,  often  a  bright-buttoned  coat, 
and  a  little  cane  twirling  in  his  saffron-gloved 
fingers  ;  while  the  air  of  devil-may-care  jauntiness 
which  he  bore,  till  he  began  to  act  his  orator  part, 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY.  211 

was  suggestive  of  anything  but  the  famous  speaker 
and  diplomat.  And  not  unfrequently  he  carried  his 
whole  array  into  court,  and  opened  his  harangue 
with  all  his  butterfly  costume  intact;  his  hands  still 
gloved,  his  bright  buttons  fastening  his  dress-coat 
across  the  breast,  and  his  glossy  hat  lightly  and  ele- 
gantly held,  —  fastidiously  a-la-mode  at  every  point. 

It  illustrates  his  vanity  that  he  had  a  singular 
desire  to  be  thought  able  to  display  his  vast  re- 
sources without  much  preparation;  and  if  on  the 
evening  before  a  great  argument  was  expected  from 
him  there  was  a  ball  or  party  or  public  meeting  in 
the  neighborhood,  he  would  be  sure  to  be  prominent 
in  it,  and  then  rushing  home  would  sit  up  all  night 
to  prepare  himself  for  his  speech.  On  one  occasion, 
in  Baltimore,  he  came  tearing  into  court  in  a  com- 
plete riding-suit,  top-boots  up  and  travel-soiled  as  if 
from  a  very  long  and  severe  horseback  ride,  and 
commenced  his  opening  by  lamenting  to  the  jury 
the  little  time  he  "  had  for  preparation  in  this  great 
and  important  case " ;  but  kindling  as  he  went  on 
and  growing  more  absorbed  and  intent  on  his  sub- 
ject, his  hopes,  and  his  illustrations,  he  altogether  for- 
got what  he  had  said  in  beginning ;  and  to  the  con- 
sternation of  those  who  valued  his  veracity,  and  had 
not  taken  leave  of  their  memories  under  his  potent 
spell,  he  pulled  out  from  his  coat-pocket  a  huge 
"brief,"  with  every  point  most  carefully  discussed 
in  writing  upon  it. 

Pinkney,  indeed,  throughout,  was  "got  up"  on 


212  THE   BAR. 

the  theatric  plan.  As  the  performers  behind  the  foot- 
lights stain  their  cheeks  and  paint  their  eyebrows  to 
a  degree  which  is  positively  disagreeable  to  close  in- 
spection, but  is  effective  under  the  illusions  of  the  pro- 
fessional situation,  so  he  exaggerated  every  trait  and 
point  for  his  dramatic  situation  as  the  "  Star"  of 
the  court,  "  for  one  day  only."  Whether  in  his  full 
dress  or  his  top-boots  before  the  jury,  whether  going 
carelessly  to  balls,  and  studiously  sitting  up  all  night 
afterwards,  or  oiling  and  anointing  his  body  and  rais- 
ing his  voice  to  a  barbaric  shout  and  frenzy,  —  in 
each  and  every  exertion  he  stood  the  first  class  actor, 
all  the  time. 

He  had  one  quality  in  which  the  great  orator  of 
the  world  was  lamentably  wanting,  for  Demosthenes 
ran  away  from  the  battle-field  of  Chseronea.  But 
Pinkney,  in  the  war  of  1812,  commanded  a  battalion 
of  riflemen,  and  in  the  attack  on  Washington  by 
the  British  General  Ross,  he  conducted  with  dis- 
tinguished gallantry,  and  "  was  severely  wounded. 
So  much  so,  that  when  he  came  to  retire  from  the 
command,  after  the  peace  was  signed,  the  corps  ex- 
pressed to  him  in  a  letter  their  cordial  admiration ; 
and  were  free  to  admit  that  if  they  had  acquired  any 
claim  to  the  applause  of  their  country,  it  was  in  a 
great  degree  to  be  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  his 
example  in  the  day  of  battle. 

A  few  of  his  most  important  arguments  and 
speeches  have  been  rescued  from  oblivion.  As  we 
read  them  over  they  seem  glittering  with  frigid  con- 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY.  213 

ceits.  They  lack  the  gloss  of  fresh  use.  They  want 
the  shimmer  of  the  light  of  the  immediate  scene  of 
their  delivery  to  play  upon  the  text.  They  exhibit  his 
unrivalled  diction,  —  that  style  woven  from  the  feli- 
cities of  all  literatures,  and  fluent  with  the  fervors  of 
a  great  mind  greatly  aroused.  But  they  by  no 
means  present  the  orator;  that  orator  whose  vic- 
torious energy  and  exuberance  of  idea,  even  in  his 
last  and  literally  dying  argument,  threw  even  Web- 
ster's grandeur  and  reposeful  strength  into  shadow ; 
compelling  a  passionate  admirer  of  them  both,  who 
sat  by,  to  admit  that  "  after  hearing  Pinkney,  Web- 
ster seemed  immeasurably  dull,  jejune,  and  dry." 
That,  however,  was  a  period  in  Webster's  growth, 
rather  in  advance  of  his  full  development.  He  had 
not  then  become  the  Representative  from  Boston 
in  Congress,  nor  made  the  immortal  argument 
against  Hayne.  He  was  only  Orient,  and  yet  far 
from  his  zenith.  But,  indeed,  it  must  have  been 
interesting  to  a  student  of  greatness  to  watch  those 
two  men  in  that  struggle ;  Pinkney  putting  forth  the 
extreme  energies  of  his  fertile  and  noble  nature,  and 
Webster  assaying  his  yet  immature  powers  in  a 
grapple  worthy  of  all  his  forces  at  their  best ;  and 
as  Pinkney,  utterly  spent  with  his  effort,  sank  back, 
never  again  to  speak,  and  was  aided  to  his  carriage 
with  a  courtly  bow  by  Webster,  who  was  yet  for 
forty  years  to  be  eloquent  in  patriot  speeches  like 
"  the  shot  of  Lexington  heard  round  the  world,"  the 
observer  might  well  have  recalled  Burke's  stately 


214  THE  BAB. 

contrast  of  the  fates  of  Chatham  and  Charles 
Townshend ;  "  For  even  then,  before  this  splendid 
orb  was  entirely  set,  upon  the  opposite  quarter  of 
the  heavens  appeared  another  luminary,  and  for  his 
hour  became  lord  of  the  ascendant." 

The  remaining  speeches  of  Pinkney,  however, 
while  they  cannot  call  him  back,  do  give  us  a  no- 
tion of  how  vast  a  help  to  the  struggling  sentiments 
of  an  orator  is  so  exhaustless  and  diversified  a  dic- 
tion. His  thousand  rapid  and  various  conceits  need 
every  aid  of  expression  to  help  them  forth  from  his 
mind.  His  rhetoric  must  set  every  rag  of  canvas,  to 
float  his  thoughts  off',  on  the  music  of  rhythm,  to  a 
prosperous  course. 

These  speeches  may  be  read  by  the  great  law- 
yers and  the  great  rhetoricians  of  the  country  and 
the  world,  but  they  will  not  be  read  by  the  people. 

Webster  in  his  earlier  day  was  eclipsed  by  Pink- 
ney, but  he  has  his  triumph  now,  for  he  is  and 
will  be  read  by  lawyers,  rhetoricians,  and  the  multi- 
tude with  equal  and  ever  fresh  delight.  As  Ben 
Jonson  said  of  Shakespeare,  "  He  was  not  for  a  day, 
but  for  all  time."  Pinkney  could  pile  up  the 
swelling  sentences,  cathedral-like  with  towering 
thought,  but  fugitive  and  spreading  as  the  phan- 
tasm of  dreams ;  it  was  not  given  to  him  to  build 
the  ponderous  architecture  of  Webster's  monumental 
style  of  thought  and  word. 

But  after  all,  Choate  and  not  Webster,  as  was 
said  in  the  beginning  of  this  view,  is  the  man  of 


WILLIAM  PINKNEY. 


the  Republic,  with  whom  alone  Pinkney  is  to  be 
compared.  Our  country  has  seen,  in  the  mere  war 
of  words  and  laws,  but  two  such  Titans;  —  two  only, 
wielding  such  thunderbolts  for  instant  striking 
power,  wreathed  with  such  lightnings  for  dazzling 
momentary  effects. 

We  now  drop  Mr.  Pinkney  as  an  advocate,  and 
wish  to  consider  him  in  conclusion  briefly  as  an 
orator  in  the  Senate.  He  was  remarkable  as  a 
senator,  for  his  entire  neglect  of  all  its  business 
and  his  entire  devotion  to  its  parades.  It  could 
not  have  been  otherwise  indeed,  overwhelmed  with 
legal  duties  as  he  was  during  his  whole  senatorial 
term  ;  but  nevertheless  he  must  be  criticised  as  a 
senator  who  accepts  the  post,  and  cannot  therefore 
plead  inconsistent  duties  as  an  excuse  for  deserting 
it.  He  was  never  a  debater,  and  never  therefore 
much  advanced  the  business  of  the  Senate.  He 
made  there,  a  few  signal  show-speeches  after  extra- 
ordinary preparation,  and  with  the  note  of  expec- 
tancy sounded  for  months  before  him.  But  had 
his  reputation  stood  upon  his  senatorship,  with  the 
men  of  that  day  it  must  have  fallen  low.  They 
looked  for  able  and  ready  thinkers,  and  talkers  com- 
petent and  willing  to  discuss  off-hand  the  measures 
of  the  day,  and  to  follow  successfully  the  heady  cur- 
rents of  debate.  They  looked  for  men  to  advise  their 
country^  and  they  gave  the  chaplets  to  him  alone 
who  could  do  all  this,  and  do  it  in  words  that  should 
tingle  in  the  ear  and  thoughts  that  should  survive 


216  THE  BAR. 

for  the  eye.  Any  man  who  merely  made  "motions," 
and  memorized  essays  and  the  showy  spectacles  of 
speech,  they  considered  only  a  parade-horse,  who 
might  be  in  perpetual  movement,  but  it  would  all 
be  up  attfd  down,  not  at  all  fonvard.  But  Pinkney 
knew  thaft  his  fame  rested  on  other  foundations,  and 
they  also  felt  this,  and  suspended  the  judgment 
which  would  have  been  due  him  simply  as  a  sena- 
tor. 

One  great  speech  only  of  his  senatorial  exhibi- 
tions may  be  considered  a  fair  and  memorable  ex- 
ception to  this  description,  —  the  Speech  upon  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  That  speech  grapples  closely 
with  the  question  in  argument,  is  learned  in  allu- 
sion and  business-like  in  details,  while  it  is  cos- 
tumed in  a  rhetorical  cloth  of  gold.  Well  it  might 
be,  for  Pinkney  had  been  getting  it  up  during  all 
the  recess  of  Congress.  Rufus  King,  the  celebrated 
senator  from  New  York,  had  made  a  vigorous  and 
zealous  argument  upon  the  other  side  of  the  ques- 
tion, and  vast  expectation  waited  on  Pinkney's  an- 
ticipated reply.  He  had  all  the  circumstances  favor- 
able to  the  production  of  an  oratorio  work.  All  the 
stars  conspired,  —  a  great  antagonist,  a  great  fore- 
running expectancy,  a  theme  than  which  there  could 
hardly  be  a  more  serious  concern  in  the  debates  of 
the  whole  earth;  and  England  and  America  were 
his  audience.  That  speech  "  still  lives."  It  will  do 
to  read.  The  old  warrior  senator,  the  "  Pater  Sena- 
tus,"  as  he  may  well  be  called,  has  embalmed  its 


RTJFUS   CHOATE.  217 

memory  in  his  History  of  the  Senate  in  the  "  Thirty 
Years'  View  " ;  and  he  does  but  utter  the  universal 
contemporary  voice,  when  he  calls  it  "  the  most  gor- 
geous, admired,  and  applauded  speech  ever  delivered 
in  the  Senate  of  America." 

Pinkney  is  in  his  grave.  He  sleeps  well,  and  his 
works  are  for  the  most  part  with  him ;  but  his  fa- 
mous name  and  the  immense  traditions  of  his  foren- 
sic prowess  will  flash  about  the  land  for  ever,  an 
inspiration  to  the  day-dreams  of  young  ambition ; 
the  rays  of  a  beaming  jewel  in  the  Republic's  only 
diadem,  —  the  memory  of  her  illustrious  children. 

RUFUS    CHOATE. 

WE  wish  to  consider  Mr.  Choate  solely  as  an  ora- 
tor, and  to  allude  to  any  other  qualities  of  mind  or 
body  which  he  may  possess,  only  as  they  bear  upon 
his  oratory.  We  do  not  consider  Mr.  Choate  a  nat- 
ural orator,  —  a  born  orator.  We  consider  him  the 
first  and  foremost  of  made  orators.  His  mind  and 
his  will  have  formed  the  elements  and  talents,  which 
nature  gave  him,  into  an  orator  of  the  highest  mark. 
Lord  Chesterfield,  in  his  letter  to  his  son,  continually 
told  him  that  any  man  of  reasonable  abilities  might 
make  himself  an  orator.  The  son  tried  his  best,  and 
broke  down  hopelessly  the  very  first  time  he  got  on 
his  legs  in  the  House  of  Commons.  While,  then,  this 
sweeping  proposition  is  not  true  in  its  widest  sense, 
it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  any  man,  possessing  a 
19 


218  THE   BAR. 

certain  class  of  intellectual  and  bodily  gifts,  may 
make  himself  a  very  creditable  orator.  And  Mr. 
Choate  is  a  magnificent  example  of  this  truth.  For 
he  is  one  who,  by  effort  and  specific  mental  training, 
has  brought  all  his  intellectual  beauty  and  wealth  to 
the  tip  of  his  tongue.  But  he  is  a  manufacture,  not 
a  creation.  And  yet,  just  as  the  fabrics  of  art  are 
often  far  more  beautiful  and  useful  than  the  raw 
work  of  nature,  so  he,  as  he  stands  before  us  —  the 
manufacture  of  the  fine  arts,  is  more  delightful  to 
hear,  and  inspiring  to  look  upon,  and  far  higher  in 
the  scale  of  being,  than  any  mere  creation  of  pulse 
and  passion. 

A  natural  orator  we  think  one,  whose  capital  pow- 
er is  in  his  character  and  passion ;  and  in  whom 
these  qualities  are  so  plainly  and  spontaneously  de- 
veloped that  he  would  be  successfully  eloquent  with 
little  art  and  less  learning.  These  he  may  add,  but 
he  could  be  very  effective  without  them.  In  the  pas- 
sion and  the  character  of  such  men  lurks  the  magic, 
—  their  amazing  will,  their  triumphal  overbearing- 
ness,  their  spontaneous,  irresistible,  self-assertion. 
Every  now  and  then  there  comes  along  some  itiner- 
ant preacher,  or  spiritual  tinker,  or  rescued  dram- 
drinker,  or  other  sort  of  person,  who,  by  the  sheer 
force  of  his  strong,  sturdy  character,  and  his  equally 
strong  animal  passion,  not  set  forth  in  any  diction- 
ary words  but  in  common  talk,  lifts  great  audiences 
to  dizzy  heights  of  enthusiasm,  and  stirs  unwonted 
throbbings  in  men's  hearts.  Chatham  and  Patrick 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  219 

Henry  were  natural  orators  of  superior  order.  And 
Henry  Clay  was  of  the  same  school.  He,  however, 
superadded  much,  but  he  was  a  native-born  after  all. 
When,  in  his  magnificent  moments,  men  saw  him 
agitate  the  Senate  into  a  fury,  and  then,  as  one  born 
to  command,  "  ride  on  the  whirlwind  and  direct  the 
storm,"  they  felt  in  their  inmost  soul  that  he  had  na- 
ture's patent  for  his  oratoric  tyranny.  When  Mira- 
beau  one  day  screamed  into  the  startled  ear  of  the 
French  Constituent  Assembly,  the  words,  "  If  I 
shake  my  terrible  locks,  all  France  trembles,"  he  said 
what  required  no  learning  to  say,  but  they  were 
mighty  words,  and  they  shook  the  Assembly. 

We  do  not  think  any  great  natural  orator  could  be 
a  great  lawyer.  His  temperament  must  sweep  him 
too  fast  for  the  severe  and  accurate  research  and 
application  which  law  demands  of  her  votaries.  The 
orator,  too,  reasons  eminently  in  the  concrete,  in  pic- 
tures and  in  deductions  which  are,  logically  speak- 
ing, gymnastic  jumps,  over  which  his  hearer  must 
go  only  by  the  bridge  of  sympathy,  not  logic.  The 
disciple  of  the  black-letter  abhors  the  concrete  as 
nature  does  a  vacuum,  and  revels  in  the  abstract. 
But  the  orator  of  mind  can  combine  both  these  ele- 
ments. He  can  be  a  great  lawyer  or  logician,  and 
an  orator  also.  Cicero,  we  have  always  thought, 
belonged  to  this  set,  and  was  of  course  the  greatest 
of  his  race.  Mirabeau  had  something  of  both  these 
qualities,  and  wonderfully  displayed  them,  when,  at 
the  end  of  a  set  harangue,  most  logically  reasoned 


220  THE   BAR. 

and  prepared,  he  saw  the  stormy  house  before  him 
still  unsubdued.  He  had  taken  his  seat,  but  he  rose 
again,  —  he  rushed  to  the  tribune,  and  rolled  forth 
instantly  a  tide  of  burning  periods,  wholly  unpre- 
meditated, which  went  crashing  and  tearing  into  the 
ears  of  his  adversaries  like  so  many  hot  shot. 

This  combination  of  diverse  powers  is  of  course 
indispensable  to  the  truly  great  advocate,  —  and  this 
Mr.  Choate  exhibits  in  the  most  thorough  develop- 
ment of  each.  His  main  power  is  by  no  means  in 
native  force  of  character;  nor  do  we  think  it  lies 
chiefly  in  passion.  His  sensibilities  we  should  judge 
to  have  been  by  nature  lively,  and  his  mind,  grasp- 
ing things  with  great  brightness  and  fulness  of  de- 
tail, and  calling  into  play  with  corresponding  inten- 
sity the  appropriate  accompanying  feelings,  has  thus 
forced  them  into  an  overstrained  activity,  by  con- 
stantly working  them  into  violent  play.  But  we 
very  much  doubt  if  there  was  any  wild  natural  out- 
gushing  of  oratoric  feeling,  self-created  and  incapa- 
ble to  be  kept  in  or  tamed  down.  He  is  a  great 
actor,  an  artist  of  the  first  rate,  but  an  actor  after  all. 
We  rather  think,  from  the  piles  of  written  sheets  be- 
hind which  he  rises  to  address  a  jury,  and  which  dis- 
appear one  by  one  as  the  speech  rolls  on,  that  every 
word  of  the  eloquent  and  impassioned  argument  is 
all  there,  cut  and  dried.  To  analyze  his  power,  then, 
we  must  trace  the  threads  of  the  intellectual  fabric, 
warp  and  woof,  and  imagine  it  delivered  with  vehe- 
ment will  to  persuade  and  energetic  fervor  to  ham- 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  221 

mer  it  home,  but  deriving  no  other  aid  or  appliance 
whatever  from  delivery ;  hardly  anything  of  the  im- 
perial command,  the  basilisk  eye,  the  untamable 
spirit  rushing  forth,  mocking  and  defying  opposition ; 
but  we  must  track  the  curious  working  of  a  grand 
machine,  —  the  intellect ;  patient,  steady,  pressing, 
storming  by  turns,  —  sometimes  bearing  down  oppo- 
sition gradually  and  piece  by  piece,  and  sometimes 
knocking  it  in  the  head.  We  heard  Webster  once, 
in  a  sentence  and  a  look,  crush  an  hour's  argument 
of  the  curious  workman ;  it  was  most  intellectually 
wire-drawn  and  hair-splitting,  with  Grecian  sophis- 
try, and  a  subtlety  the  Leontine  Gorgias  might  have 
envied.  It  was  about  two  car-wheels,  which  to  com- 
mon eyes  looked  as  like  as  two  eggs ;  but  Mr.  Choate, 
by  a  fine  line  of  argument  between  tweedle-dum  and 
tweedle-dee,  and  a  discourse  on  "the  fixation  of 
points  "  so  deep  and  fine  as  to  lose  itself  in  obscurity, 
showed  the  jury  there  was  a  heaven-wide  difference 
between  them.  "  But,"  said  Mr.  Webster,  and  his 
great  eyes  opened  wide  and  black,  as  he  stared  at 
the  big  twin  wheels  before  him,  "  Gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  there  they  are,  —  look  at  'em";  and  as  he  pro- 
nounced this  answer,  in  tpnes  of  vast  volume,  the 
distorted  wheels  seemed  to  shrink  back  again  into 
their  original  similarity,  and  the  long  argument  on 
the  "  fixation  of  points "  died  a  natural  death.  It 
was  an  example  of  the  ascendency  of  mere  character 
over  mere  intellectuality ;  but  so  much  greater,  never- 
theless, the  intellectuality. 
19* 


222  THE  BAR. 

He  has  not,  then,  any  of  those  remarkably  rare 
and  bold  traits  of  character,  conspicuous  enough 
singly,  to  account  for  his  forensic  supremacy.  When 
not.  actually  in  a  fight,  he  is  quiet,  facile,  accommo- 
dating, and  bland.  You  would  by  no  means  sus- 
pect the  volcanic  energies  lurking  beneath,  from  any 
appearances  on  the  surface.  In  his  wan  and  worn 
and  bloodless  but  benignant  face,  you  would  see 
enough  to  suspect  intellectual  treasures  stored  up, 
and  an  inner  life  of  strange  and  unusual  topics  and 
movement.  He  looks  as  if  he  moved  about  in  his 
own  mysterious  solitude  for  ever,  whether  in  crowds 
or  all  alone  ;  like  some  stray  child  of  a  land  bathed 
in  sunset  beauty,  musing  ever  on  warm  Arabian 
skies,  and  the  burning  stars  and  gorgeous  bloom  of 
the  hanging  gardens  of  his  home.  But  his  mere 
oratoric  presence  is  nothing.  And  therefore  he  never 
impresses  an  audience,  especially  a  professional  one, 
with  a  sense  of  his  greatness,  till  he  does  something ; 
till  he  speaks  or  acts  in  the  legal  drama.  We  see 
no  external  symptom  of  overpowering  native  charac- 
ter ;  no  symptom  of  anything  which  would  make 
you  think  that  that  man,  by  his  grand  movement, 
by  his  basilisk  eye,  by  his  uplifted  arm,  might  strike 
dumb  opposition  and  palsy  hate.  And  yet  we  have 
seen  him  when  in  battle,  his  battle  —  that  of  thoughts 
and  words,  standing  right  over  a  legal  adversary 
with  outstretched  arm,  with  eye  burning  black  with 
smothered  fire,  and  face  white  with  a  deathlike  pal- 
lor, his  form  erect,  his. brow  more  spacious,  and  the 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  223 

dark  curly  locks  on  his  temples  fluttering  about  and 
waving,  and  uplifting  like  battle-flags,  to  flaunt  de- 
fiance at  the  foe, —  and  then  he  looked  the  oratorio 
war-god. 

Why  was  this  ?  It  was  because  at  those  moments 
his  mind,  wherein  his  power  lies,  was  all  kindled  and 
crowded  and  stretching  with  thought,  and  bursting 
with  intellectual  passion.  It  was  the  burning  and 
beaming  mind  of  the  man  which  lit  the  bold  glance 
in  his  eye,  and  lifted  and  brightened  his  proud  crest. 
Like  all  the  first-class  orators,  he  has  in  the  recesses 
of  his  nature  the  Titan  forge  and  the  Cyclopean 
fires  for  the  manufacture  of  great  effects ;  but  the 
flames  to  enkindle  them  come  from  his  intellect,  not 
from  his  soul.  His  combustions  catch  fire  from  his 
brain,  not  from  his  blood. 

It  is  not  so  with  the  born  orator.  When  he  rises 
to  speak,  his  sensibilities,  bodily  and  mental,  stimu- 
late his  mind,  not  his  mind  the  sensibilities ;  his 
mind  does  not  start  his  blood,  his  blood  sets  his 
mind  going. 

We  must  explore,  then,  the  sources  of  Mr.  Choate's 
achievement  chiefly  in  his  mind.  And  his  intellec- 
tual enginery  may  be  all  generally  summed  up  and 
grouped  in  a  few  capital  heads,  thus. 

At  the  basis  of  all  lies  undoubtedly  a  strong,  vig- 
orous, masculine  understanding.  He  has  at  once  an 
observing  and  an  organizing  mind ;  an  eye  hawk- 
like for  the  perception  of  particulars,  and  a  logical 
faculty  sturdy  and  severe  to  generalize  and  group 


224  THE   BAR. 

them.  As  Mr.  Webster  said,  in  his  eulogy  of  Jere- 
miah Mason,  "  He  grasps  his  point  and  holds  it." 
Superficial  observers,  remarking  the  luxuriance  of 
his  metaphoric  style  and  the  poetical  abandonment 
of  his  passion,  would  be  apt  to  conclude  that  the 
gay  structure  of  his  arguments  was  flimsy ;  but  let 
them  strike  their  heads  against  it  and  they  would 
see.  For  in  his  wildest  and  most  flaming  outbreak 
of  even  an  occasional  oration,  seeming  almost  a 
mere  jubilate  of  conscious  enthusiasm,  there  is  a 
massive  well-set  framework  and  firm  foundation. 
That  mastery  of  the  law,  in  its  learning  and  its 
severest  application,  with  which  he  daily  conquers  in 
the  courts,  that  entire  memory  and  command  of  the 
thousand  facts  and  details  of  a  complicated  case 
which  every  argument  evinces,  would  alone  show 
how  firm  and  solid  was  the  texture  of  his  mind. 
More  than  once  has  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court 
remarked,  that  that  tribunal  listened  to  no  man  with 
more  respect  on  naked  abstract  legal  points  ;  and 
we  ourselves  have  heard  one  of  the  oldest,  dryest, 
keenest,  ablest  and  most  fancy-withered  lawyers  at 
our  Bar  say,  that  on  the  closest  question  of  contin- 
gent remainders  or  executory  devises,  he  would  trust 
Rufus  Choate's  legal  learning  and  logic  as  soon  as 
any  leader's  in  the  law. 

But  we  are  discussing  him  as  an  orator,  not  as  a 
lawyer,  and  we  cite  it  only  as  a  proof  of  the  strength 
of  his  mind,  which  forms  a  capital  element  of  his 
oratory.  In  truth,  he  has  a  gladiatorial  intellect,  in 
strength  as  well  as  combativeness. 


EUFUS   CHOATE.  225 

Intimately  blended  with  this  power,  and  giving 
light  and  vivacity  to  all  its  operations,  is  that  regal 
faculty  which  in  him  is  beyond  all  measure  splendid, 
—  his  imagination  and  fancy ;  and  this  flames  ever 
on  the  iron  chain  of  his  logic,  as  the  electric  spark 
flashes  upon  the  iron  road  of  its  telegraphic  course. 
He  can  present  his  thought  as  bald  and  bare  as 
bleaching  bones,  but  he  prefers  to  give  it  forth,  as  it 
first  comes  to  him,  embodied  in  beauty  and  robed  in 
splendor.  You  can  hardly  ever  listen  to  him  ten 
minutes  anywhere,  without  being  waked  up  by  some 
surprising  imaginative  analogy  or  fanciful  illustra- 
tion. In  court,  or  with  an  audience,  this  warm  im- 
agery appears,  equally  when  in  an  insurance  case 
he  apostrophizes  "  the  spirit  which  leads  the  philan- 
thropy of  two  hemispheres  to  the  icy  grave  of  Sir 
John  Franklin,"  or  when  in  Faneuil  Hall  he  con- 
jures up  before  the  eyes  of  a  wildly  applauding 
political  assembly,  a  vision  beauteous  of  "  the  dark- 
eyed  girls  of  Mexico  wailing  to  the  light  guitar, — 
Ah,  woe  is  me,  Alhamra,  for  a  thousand  years  !  " 
and  by  the  vividness  of  his  conception  and  the  cor- 
responding intensity  of  his  delivery,  causing  the 
people  almost  to  hear  with  the  mortal  ear  the  long 
lament  as  of  the  daughters  of  Judea  over  a  ruined 
land,  —  sounds  the  most  melancholy  of  all  that  rise 
from  the  sorrow-stricken  fields  of  earth. 

But  reason  and  fancy  would  do  the  orator  no 
good,  without  an  emotional  and  kindling  tempera- 
ment ;  a  physical  warmth,  as  well  as  a  moral  and 


226  THE   BAR. 

emotional  susceptibility.  Poets  often  have  the  lat- 
ter, but  no  physical  fire  and  ardor ;  orators  often 
have  the  former,  but  no  fanciful  brightness.  He  has 
both.  But,  as  we  intimated  in  the  outset,  his  animal 
sensibility  is  subordinate  and  inferior  to  his  intellec- 
tual sensibility.  And  in  him  this  is  as  keen  as  it 
was  in  an  Ionian  Greek.  No  child  of  Athens,  stand- 
ing in  the  shadow  of  the  moonlighted  Parthenon, 
ever  felt  his  nostrils  quiver  or  his  heart  expand  with 
more  genuine  intellectual  sentimentality,  than  he  is 
conscious  of  when  at  the  bidding  of  his  quickening 
fancy  there  rises  full  on  the  mirror  of  his  mind  the 
radiant  architecture  of  some  great  argument. 

And  in  these  capital  characteristics  we  have  in  a 
large  view  the  leading  elements  of  his  oratory ;  the 
solidity  of  understanding  which  fixes  the  tough  and 
close-clamped  framework  of  his  creations ;  the  im- 
agination which  clothes  and  paints  them  with  the 
roses  and  the  garlands  and  the  Tyrian  colors  of  an  in- 
exhaustible fancy,  and  breathes  over  them  the  beauty 
not  born  of  earth  ;  and  the  sensibility  which  stirs  our 
life-blood  like  the  mountain  bugle,  or  touches  the 
sealed  fountain  of  our  tears  like  a  tone  from  the 
spirit-land. 

And  hence  springs  his  most  remarkable  and  un- 
paralleled ability  to  take  any  part  of  his  subject, 
whether  a  theme  or  evidence  given  on  the  witness 
stand,  and  force  it  altogether  out  of  its  natural  re- 
lations, by  conceiving  it  with  unnatural  intenseness 
in  his  own  mind,  and  then,  by  his  mingled  imagina- 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  227 

tion  and  sensibility  and  wealth  of  language  invest- 
ing it  with  a  character  not  its  own,  —  rainbow  hues 
or  sulphureous  fires  as  he  chooses,  —  and  commend- 
ing it  thus  at  will  to  the  benediction  or  the  maledic- 

O 

tion  of  men.  How  often  have  we  seen  the  opposite 
counsel  in  a  case  utterly  puzzled  and  baffled  by  the 
strange  way  in  which  Choate  seemed  to  be  putting 
the  facts  to  the  jury  ;  and  interrupting  him  again  and 
again  in  vain,  met  and  foiled  every  time  by  the  reply, 
" Do  I  misstate  the  facts ?  I'm  only  arguing  upon 
them."  And  the  discomfited  interrupter  would  sink 
back  in  despair,  utterly  unable  to  detect  precisely 
where  was  the  error,  yet  feeling  sure  that  he  had 
heard  no  such  evidence.  The  fact  was,  Choate  had 
the  basis  fact  all  right,  —  he  was  only  painting  and 
inflaming  it  with  his  own  colors  ;  but  the  paints  on 
his  palette  were  to  his  adversary's  as  the  sky  of 
Italy  to  the  sky  of  Sweden ;  and  they  were  brought 
out  on  his  canvas  in  even  more  perplexing  and  be- 
wildering hue  by  the  impassioned  heat  of  his  un- 
bridled sensibility. 

Again  and  again  have  we  seen  this  imaginative 
conception,  and  distorting  description,  and  passion- 
ate expression,  giving  birth  to  an  inspiring  conta- 
gious and  irresistible  enthusiasm,  carry  him  right 
over  weak  spots  in  the  argument  of  the  case,  as  the 
skater  swift  as  light  skims  in  safety  the  cracking 
and  bending  ice.  Scarlet,  Lord  Abinger  used  to 
wheedle  juries  across  the  weak  places,  but  Choate 
rarely  does  that,  —  he  prefers  to  rush  them  right 
over. 


228  THE   BAR. 

Brilliantly  was  this  capacity  exhibited  in  the  case 
of  Captain  Martin,  indicted  in  the  United  States 
District  Court  for  casting  away  his  vessel  off  San 
Domingo  with  the  intent  to  procure  the  insurance. 
The  government  had  been  at  the  cost  of  sending  a 
special  agent  to  Hayti  for  evidence,  and  he  had 
brought  back  with  him  a  black  man  from  Solouque's 
empire,  called  by  the  swelling  appellation  of  "  Duke 
Pino."  All  the  other  evidence  was  manageable,  but 
his  testimony  was  very  ugly.  He  swore  positively, 
through  an  interpreter,  that  he  dived  down  under 
water  and  examined  the  logwood  cargo  of  the  ship 
and  her  starboard  bow,  and  in  the  latter  he  found  a 
great  smooth  hole,  not  rough  enough  for  a  rock  to 
have  made,  and  which  evidently  was  the  death- 
wound  of  the  ship.  All  the  other  parts  of  the  proof 
of  the  government  might  be  got  over;  some  of  them 
indeed  were  somewhat  favorable ;  but  that  awful 
hole  threatened  to  swallow  up  case,  captain,  advocate, 
and  all.  All  the  rest  he  managed  adroitly  and  aptly, 
but  when  on  the  second  day  of  his  argument  to  the 
jury  he  came  to  that  part,  he  did  n't  blink  it  at  all ; 
he  "  rose  right  at  the  wall."  He  told  the  jury  in  set 
terms,  they  need  not  think  he  was  afraid  of  that  dark 
Duke,  butting  his  black  head  among  the  logwood 
fathoms  deep  under  water ;  and  then  all  at  once  he 
opened  his  whole  armament,  in  such  a  double  broad- 
side of  eloquence  and  fiction  and  ridicule,  that  he 
riddled  poor  Duke  Pino  himself  into  a  perfect  honey- 
comb. And  then,  taking  advantage  of  a  felicitous 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  229 

circumstance  in  the  captain's  conduct,  —  to  wit,  that 
he  did  not  fly  when  first  accused,  —  he  concluded 
with  a  singularly  noble,  simple,  and  Scriptural  burst, 
which  came  in  like  a  grand  trumpet  choral,  to  crown 
his  lyrical  oration:  "Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  the 
accused  man  paused,  he  did  not  fly,  —  for  he  turned 
his  eyes  upward,  and  he  was  thinking  of  the  sublime 
promise,  'When  thou  goest  through  the  fire,  thou 
shalt  not  be  burned,  and  through  the  deep  waters, 
they  shall  not  overflow  thee.' "  And,  saying  these 
words,  the  great  advocate  sank  into  his  seat.  The 
jury  acquitted  the  captain,  and  the  expenses  of  the 
expedition  of  the  Baronet  Pino  to  America  were 
charged  by  the  government,  we  presume,  to  "  profit 
and  loss,"  as  a  pleasure  excursion  to  Boston  of  the 
ducal  diver. 

Indeed,  such  and  so  inspiring  is  his  enthusiasm 
and  fancy,  that  graver  minds  than  juries  surrender  to 
its  fascinations,  and  more  than  once  the  granite  na- 
ture of  Webster  acknowledged  its  sway.  We  re- 
member especially,  on  one  occasion,  sitting  behind 
him  on  the  little  seats  where  the  American  bar  is 
represented  before  the  judgment-seat  of  last  resort 
in  America,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
and  hearing  him  turn  to  the  editor  of  the  Intelligen- 
cer, who  sat  next  him,  with  an  involuntary  exclama- 
tion, as  some  swelling  climax  of  Choate's  eloquence 
pealed  upon  his  ear,  "  Is  n't  that  fine !  is  n't  that 
beautiful ! "  And  again,  at  a  dinner  on  the  next 
day,  we  had  a  singular  pride  as  a  fellow-citizen,  and 
20 


230  THE   BAR. 

an  humble  admirer  of  the  subject  of  the  laudation, 
in  hearing  the  same  great  oracle  break  out  with  a 
sort  of  Johnsonian  weight  of  manner,  in  answer  to 
a  somewhat  depreciating  criticism  upon  Choate  by 
a  noted  New  York  lawyer,  "  Sir,  let  me  tell  you  Mr. 
Choate  is  a  wonderful  man,  —  he 's  a  marvel"  Upon 
his  death-bed  he  told  Mr.  Peter  Harvey  of  Boston, 
that  Choate  was  the  most  brilliant  man  in  America. 

In  estimating  the  parts  of  the  machinery  which 
produces  his  oratoric  fabrics,  however,  we  should 
hardly  have  a  just  view  if  we  confined  the  consider- 
ation to  the  chief  elements  only.  There  are  many 
subordinate  instrumentalities  evoked,  some  of  them 
spontaneous,  and  others  the  result  of  great  industry 
specifically  applied.  The  trunk  of  an  elephant  is  the 
instrument  by  which  all  his  powers  are  chiefly  made 
useful,  but  the  fine  prolongation  on  the  end  of  it,  by 
which  he  can  pick  up  a  needle,  is  as  important  as 
the  main  body  of  it,  by  which  he  can  fell  an  oak- 
tree. 

To  the  solidity  of  understanding,  the  picture-like 
beauty  of  imagination,  and  the  ardent,  heart-warm- 
ing glow  of  sensibility,  all  of  which  first  catch  our 
eye  in  his  performances,  is  to  be  added  that  which 
comes  to  Mr.  Choate  from  an  unflagging  studious- 
ness,  and  a  scholarly  and  acquisitive  taste ;  namely, 
a  wonderful  wealth  of  words,  beggaring  all  descrip- 
tion for  copiousness,  variety,  novelty,  and  effect. 
Literary  allusions,  sparkling  sentences,  and  words 
freighted  with  poetic  association,  are  so  stored  in 


RUEUS   CHOATE.  231 

his  memory,  apparently,  that  he  can  dress  his  thought 
as  he  pleases,  plain  or  in  gay  rhetorical  attire,  in 
kitchen  garments  or  in  coronation  robes.  And  this 
vast  command  of  language  is  of  immense  impor- 
tance to  him  in  many  ways ;  for  first,  it  rolls  forth  in 
such  an  unhesitating  and  unbroken  current,  that  the 
vehement  flow  and  rush  of  the  speaker's  feeling  and 
passion  are  greatly  encouraged  and  helped  by  it.  A 
vehement,  headlong  style  of  thought  must  have  a 
wider  and  more  unencumbered  channel  for  its  course 
than  a  more  placid  but  less  moving  stream.  "  Give 
me,"  said  the  younger  Pliny,  in  his  Epistles,  "  among 
all  the  Roman  speakers,  the  copious  and  the  abun- 
dant orator,  —  he  alone  can  command  me,  and  bear 
me  as  he  will."  And  this  is  as  true  now  in  America, 
as  it  was  then  in  Rome.  Others  may  sometimes 
equally  delight,  but  it  is  the  rapid,  sweeping,  vehe- 
ment utterance  that  most  of  all  takes  captive.  And 
this  command  of  words,  too,  enables  him  to  express 
his  precise  thought,  in  its  minutest  shade  of  meaning. 
Very  few  men  in  the  world  can  say  exactly  what 
they  mean ;  they  can  approach  it,  and  go  about  it 
and  about  it,  but  never  hit  it ;  but  he,  whenever  he 
chooses  to  be  close  and  precise,  can  not  only  reach 
the  target,  but  hit  the  "  bull's-eye "  every  time  he 
tries. 

But  more  even  to  the  orator  than  freedom  of  feel- 
ing or  precision  of  expression  is  the  ability,  which  a 
copious  richness  of  diction  affords,  to  color  and  gild 
and  lift  up  his  idea  or  sentiment  by  words  which  are 


232  THE   BAR. 

in  themselves  metaphors  and  pictures,  and  which 
cannot  be  denied  to  be  descriptive  of  the  theme,  but 
yet  color  and  heighten  prodigiously  its  impression 
on  the  mind.  For  the  style  of  expression  is  not 
simply  the  dress  of  the  thought,  —  it  is  the  embodi- 
ment, the  incarnation  of  the  thought ;  as  the  discrim- 
inating Frenchman  said,  "  the  style  is  the  man,"  so 
also  it  is  true  that  the  style  is  the  thought ;  you  can't 
separate  them  any  more  than  you  can  cut  asunder 
the  beating  of  the  orator's  heart  from  the  sparkle  of 
his  eye  and  the  flushing  of  his  cheek.  And  so  com- 
plete is  this  identification,  that  the  common  thought 
married  to  immortal  words,  is  apotheosized  itself.  A 
late  critic  on  Demosthenes  has  suggested  justly,  that 
the  reason  why  the  prince  of  orators  seems  tame  to 
us,  as  we  read  him,  is,  that  we  cannot  take  in  fully 
and  feel  the  full  association  and  metaphoric  image 
which  each  word  conveyed  to  every  Athenian  whose 
ears  tingled  as  he  stood  in  the  agora  before  him.  To 
do  that,  would  demand  an  Athenian  life  and  conver- 
sation. 

Warriors  on  the  eve  of  the  fight  have  spoken  to 
the  soldiery  in  words  which  have  been  in  truth  half- 
battles,  and  always  for  the  orator  the  winged  words 
of  rhetoric  will  go  far  to  win  the  day.  The  extraor- 
dinary affluence  of  diction  which  Mr.  Choate  pos- 
sesses is  drawn  from  all  the  sources  of  literature  and 
men's  talk,  common  and  uncommon;  from  the  Bible 
and  the  newspapers,  from  some  Homeric  stanza  and 
from  the  chat  of  our  streets ;  from  books  the  people 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  233 

love,  and  books  they  never  heard  of;  simple  words, 
long-legged  words,  all  mixed  up  and  stuck  together 
like  a  bizarre  mosaic,  showing  forth  some  splendid 
story,  in  all  its  infinite  variety  of  hues. 

Although  oratory  is  one  of  the  fine  arts,  and  the 
province  of  a  fine  art  is  to  yield  pleasure  as  an  end, 
yet  it  is  also  a  useful  art,  and  therefore  the  beauty 
and  vigor  of  language  is  only  admirable  in  the  ora- 
tor when  it  conduces  to  the  deeper  and  more  intense 
impression  of  the  thought  upon  the  mind  ;  and  judged 
by  this  standard  without  reference  to  any  arbitrary 
canons  of  taste,  we  think  Mr.  Choate's  word-a.mum- 
tion  is  a  most  legitimate  and  useful  and  telling 
charge  for  his  oratoric  artillery. 

They  are  not  at  a.llftne  words  exclusively ;  there  is 
nothing  of  kid-gloved  dilettantism  in  his  vocabulary  ; 
he  is  not,  like  some  speakers  who  scorn  to  deliver 
themselves  in  any  but  a  sort  of  rose-colored  rhetoric, 
afraid  to  take  right  hold  of  the  huge-paw  of  the  de- 
mocracy by  language  coarse  and  homely  and  inele- 
gant, but  full  of  strength  and  grit  and  sense.  Indeed, 
often  you  will  see  and  hear  in  his  jury  appeals  a  clas- 
sic gem  of  thought  of  rarest  ray,  set  side  by  side  with 
phrases  smacking  strongly  of  the  very  slang  of  the 
streets.  But  the  talk  of  the  day,  though  it  may  not 
excite  men's  wonder,  comes  home  to  their  bosoms 
and  business ;  and  through  its  road  often  the  highest 
eloquence  may  move,  as  two  thousand  years  ago  the 
sage  Socrates  talked  in  the  street  before  the  Pnyx  in 
Athens,  to  the  common  people  who  passed  by ;.  illus- 
20* 


234  THE   BAR. 

trating  by  the  commonest  examples  the  profoundest 
philosophy. 

And  in  all  Mr.  Choate's  language,  whether  com- 
mon or  uncommon,  there  is  point,  object,  and  mean- 
ing. No  man  can  call  his  wild  flights  of  metaphor 
and  imagery  —  forcible-feeble  ;  or  rank  his  composi- 
tion as  belonging  to  the  "  spread-eagle  "  school ;  for  in 
his  wildest  and  most  far-fetched  excursion  for  analo- 
gies, his  flight  soars  from  such  a  massive  ground-work, 
that  though  the  adversary  smile  he  must  also  shake; 
just  as  the  gala  decorations  of  the  heavy  sides  of  a 
three-decker  mantle  in  bright  bunting  her  grim  bat- 
teries ;  but  through  flowers  and  through  ribbons  we 
see  all  the  time  those  terrible  death-dealing,  powder- 
stained  muzzles  still  there. 

There  is  never  any  calmness  or  simplicity  in  his 
general  composition.  It  is  marked  throughout  by  a 
character  of  apparently  rather  morbid  mental  exag- 
geration. We  never  see  him,  like  the  statesman,  sim- 
ply proposing  and  grandly  inveighing  or  insisting ; 
but  always,  like  the  orator  advocate,  idealizing  every- 
thing, and  forcing  it  out  of  all  its  natural  and  just 
relations.  His  disposition  produces  some  extraordi- 
nary neighborhoods  among  thoughts.  Things  that 
never  before  dared  to  lift  their  audacious  heads  high- 
er than  the  sand,  he  sets  at  once  side  by  side  with 
the  stars  ;  and  if  notwithstanding  his  interfusing  art, 
they  seem  as  uncomfortable  and  ill-matched  as  some 
marriage-unions  of  more  corporeal  creations,  he 
breathes  over  them  one  burst  of  eloquent  passion, 
and  they  settle  down  cosily  together. 


RUFTJS   CHOATE.  235 

Over  all  his  work  a  serio-comic  cast  is  percepti- 
ble. His  analogies  and  figures  are  sometimes  de- 
signed to  produce  mirth,  and  then  he  always  "  brings 
down  the  house  " ;  but  even  when  not  designed,  there 
is  often  such  a  funny  little  vein  of  thought,  dashed 
into  some  solemn  and  high-keyed  conception,  like  a 
woof  of  woollen  shot  with  silver  or  the  black  marble 
of  Egypt  veined  with  the  yellow  gold,  that  it  pro- 
vokes a  quiet  smile  as  if  some  stage  tragedy-king 
should  crack  a  joke,  or  the  sepulchral  Hamlet  should 
give  one  rib-shaking  laugh.  In  a  marine  criminal 
case  he  had  been  making  a  lofty  flourish,  ushering 
in  upon  the  stage  of  his  thoughts  like  the  motley 
cavalcades  of  a  circus  in  one  grand  entree.  Captain 
Parry  and  the  English  crown,  eternal  snows  and  the 
royal  enterprise  of  a  new  empire,  and  Heaven  knows 
what  else!  in  the  most  singular  but  striking  juxta- 
position, his  whole  manner  dignified,  fervent,  and 
lofty  in  the  extreme,  —  when  suddenly  he  gave  the 
oddest,  wildest  counter-stroke  of  sentiment  we  ever 
heard,  even  from  him,  by  turning  to  a  leading  wit- 
ness who  had  testified  against  him,  and  who  had 
said  in  cross-examination  that  he  got  some  of  his 
opinions  from  the  policemen  of  the  whaling  city  of 
New  Bedford,  —  turning  right  to  him,  he  brought 
down  roars  of  laughter  on  his  devoted  head,  and 
utterly  demolished  the  weight  of  his  evidence  by 
shouting  out  the  sarcastic  and  funny  inquiry: 
"Pray,  what  opinions  do  the  policemen  of  New 
Bedford  hold  on  these  things  ?  I  wonder  what  the 


236  THE  BAR. 

policemen  of  New  Bedford  think  of  the  great,  newly- 
discovered,  tranquil  sea,  encircling  the  North  Pole ! " 

But,  while  his  eloquence  of  composition  cannot 
be  called  distinctively  self-assured  and  statesman- 
like, it  is  yet  elevated  and  inspiring,  from  its  appeals 
to  the  whole  range  of  the  grander  and  larger  virtues  ; 
to  magnanimity  and  loftiness  of  soul.  Often  he 
will  draw  some  heart-comforting  scene,  which  opens 
to  us  the  paradise  of  youthful  dreams  where  every 
noble  and  gallant  virtue  combines  to  set  its  seal,  for 
the  sole  purpose,  apparently,  of  raising  the  hearer's 
mind  to  the  level  of  the  appeal  he  is  about  to  make 
to  him  in  the  name  of  virtue  and  honor  itself.  "  I 
appeal  to  the  manliness  of  a  Boston  jury,"  he  often 
exclaims,  and  rarely  in  vain  ;  "  I  appeal  to  the  man- 
hood of  a  Massachusetts  judge,"  he  sometimes  ex- 
claims, with  not  universally  the  same  propitious 
result. 

The  whole  movement  and  play  of  his  mind  in 
oratory  seems  large  and  free ;  and  the  broadest 
generalizations  of  abstract  truth  fall  from  his  lips ; 
maxims  of  the  widest  application,  truths  eternal  and 
infinite,  —  maxims  and  aphorisms  which  Edmund 
Burke  might  have  uttered  in  his  hour  of  most  philo- 
sophical frenzy.  From  these  universal  principles 
and  the  higher  order  of  intellectual  considerations, 
the  nobilities  of  mind,  he  will  always  reason  when- 
ever the  subject  tolerates  such  treatment.  But 
though  his  style  of  rhetoric  is  as  opulent  in  thought 
as  it  is  oriental  in  diction,  it  does  not  seem  so  rich 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  237 

in  thought  and  observation  as  it  really  is,  from  the 
very  splendor  of  the  words,  —  it  has  wisdom  with- 
out parade ;  the  parade  is  wholly  in  the  dress  of  the 
ideas. 

But,  after  all,  we  feel  that  the  most  general  traits 
of  his  oratoric  compositions  are  to  be  summed  up 
and  set  down  as  an  indescribable  mixture  of  truth 
and  reason,  extravagance  and  intensity,  beauty  and 
pathos.  Nothing  is  too  wild,  or  far-fetched,  or  in- 
tense for  him  to  utter  in  his  oratorical  raptures. 
Similes  and  arguments,  for  which  another  man 
would  almost  be  hooted  out  of  court,  he  can  say 
with  profound  gravity  and  prodigious  effect.  And 
herein,  as  much  as  anywhere,  he  reveals  his  real, 
essential  power;  for  the  force  of  his  will  and  his 
intellectual  passion  is  such,  that  he  compels  us  in 
spite  of  ourselves  to  admire  and  sympathize  with 
what  in  another  man's  mouth  we  might  entirely 
condemn ;  for  when  he  seems  utterly  carried  away 
himself  by  the  rush  and  storm  and  glitter  of  pas- 
sions and  of  pictures  sweeping  over  his  mind,  we 
go  with  him  in  spite  of  ourselves ;  then,  no  matter 
how  trivial  the  subject  or  how  humble  the  place,  he 
abandons  himself  wholly  to  the  mood,  and  so  won- 
derful is  his  power  of  compelling  sympathy,  that  he 
will  at  once  lift  that  lowly  theme  into  aerial  pro- 
portions, cover  it  all  over  with  the  banners  of  beauty, 
and  for  a  moment  seem  to  make  it  fit  for  the  con- 
templation of  a  universe,  —  and  few  will  laugh, 
and  all  will  wonder,  and  many  tremble  with  delight. 


238  THE  BAR. 

Once,  in  a  cheap  case,  in  a  criminal  court,  when  he 
wished  to  tell  the  jury  that  the  circumstance  that 
the  defendant's  assignee  in  insolvency  paid  but  a 
small  dividend,  although  the  defendant  had  been 
a  very  wealthy  man,  was  no  evidence  of  fraud  on 
his  part  (because  an  estate  turned  suddenly  into 
cash,  by  an  assignee  indifferent  to  the  interest  of 
the  owner,  would  waste  and  net  nothing  like  its 
value),  he  contrived  to  liken  the  property  melting 
away  under  that  assignee's  management,  to  the 
scattering  of  a  magnificent  mirage  under  the  noon- 
day heat ;  and  rising  higher  and  higher  in  his  mood, 
as  he  saw  the  twelve  pair  of  eyes  before  him  stretch- 
ing wide,  we  well  remember  with  what  loud  and  peal- 
ing accents,  he  swept  in  glory  through  the  climax  of 
his  imagery  and  his  argument,  by  this  astonishing 
comparison  of  the  dry-goods  man's  bankruptcy : 
"  So  have  I  heard,  that  the  vast  possessions  of 
Alexander  the  conqueror  crumbled  away  in  dying 
dynasties,  in  the  unequal  hands  of  his  weak  heirs." 
And  again,  there  are  passages  scattered  all  through 
his  productions,  of  the  most  genuine  and  simple  poetry 
and  pathos ;  as  unforced  and  natural  as  the  lines  of 
the  marvellous  child,  who  "  wrote  in  numbers,  for 
the  numbers  came  " ;  and  blended  with  them  there 
are  other  passages  of  fiery  but  pure  poetry,  concep- 
tions which  may  challenge  comparison  with  the 
most  emphatic  of  even  the  flaming  cantos  distilled 
from  the  darkest  midnight  and  the  best  gin  by  the 
fevered  brain  of  Byron.  All  the  poetry  there  is  in 


B.UFTJS   CHOATE.  239 

• 

anything,  his  genius  will  detect  and  grasp  as  surely 
as  the  divining-rod  points  to  the  golden  stratum  be- 
neath the  soil ;  for  in  the  education  of  his  faculties 
he  has  been  always  loyal  to  the  Muses,  as  well  as 
faithful  to  the  austerer  claims  of  his  acknowledged 
sovereign,  the  sage  Themis;  and  he  may  well  be 
called  —  the  poet-laureate  of  oratory.  Nothing  is 
too  far  off  from  fancy  for  him  to  detect  its  remote 
imaginative  connections  of 'thought;  Cowper's  Task 
poem  on  a  Sofa  is  nothing  to  one  of  Choate's  Task 
arguments  on  a  musty  old  Deed.  Indeed,  we  believe 
he  'd  have  poetry  out  of  a  broom-stick,  if  necessary. 
Like  De  Quincey,  he  idealizes  everything,  throw- 
ing over  common  things  that  dreamy  sentimen- 
tality which  shows  that  they  are  the  utterances  of  a 
mind  full  of  associations  unknown  to  any  but  the 
children  of  genius ;  raising  thus  the  ordinary  occur- 
rence, the  mere  casuality,  into  the  importance  of 
an  epic  or  the  tragic  grandeur  of  a  fatality.  And 
oftentimes  the  poetry  and  the  passion  mellow  and 
blend  in  chaste  beauty,  and  the  pathos  goes  straight 
to  the  heart,  tender  and  touching  and  tearful ;  and 
then  as  he  soars  upward  again  on  some  sublime 
spirituality  of  sentiment,  or  lets  his  fancy  riot  in 
the  full  flood  of  rapt  imaginings,  the  oratorical  argu- 
ment grows  lyrical  in  its  poetic  colorings,  over  it  a 
mystical  and  weird-like  tinge  is  thrown,  and  the 
orator  stands  before  us,  like  an  Italian  improvisa- 
tore,  or  the  Homeric  rhapsodist,  telling  the  tale  of 
"  Troy  divine  "  in  the  streets  of  the  Athenian  homes. 


240  THE  BAR. 

• 

The  peroration  of  one  of  his  arguments,  as  we 
now  recall  it  from  memory,  after  an  interval  of 
some  years,  was  an  affecting  illustration  of  the  ten- 
der and  beautiful  traits  of  his  speaking.  It  was  an 
argument  to  a  single  judge,  sitting  without  a  jury, 
to  hear  a  libel  for  divorce.  Daniel  Webster  was  on 
the  other  side,  and  he  supported  the  husband's  peti- 
tion for  a  divorce,  on  the  ground  of  the  alleged 
wrong  of  the  wife.  Choate  defended  the  wife,  on 
the  ground  that  the  principal  witness  in  the  case 
was  not  to  be  believed,  and  that  the  wife  was 
falsely  accused  by  the  husband,  who  perhaps  was 
impatient  of  the  matrimonial  chain.  He  wound  up 
a  close  and  clamorous  attack  upon  the  witness,  who 
swore  to  certain  improprieties  of  a  young  man  with 
the  lady,  his  client,  by  the  vehement  declaration  that 
if  this  were  true,  "  that  young  man  is  the  Alcibia- 
des  of  America"  ;  this  he  uttered  with  impassioned 
energy,  "  fire  in  his  eye  and  fury  on  his  tongue " ; 
and  then  he  made  a  full  stop ;  he  looked  into  the 
stern,  grand  face  of  Webster ;  he  looked  at  the  scowl- 
ing husband  and  the  tearful  wife ;  he  looked  at  the 
solemn  judge ;  his  eyes  seemed  to  moisten  with  his 
thought ;  and  presently  a  grave,  calm,  and  plaintive 
tone  broke  the  deep  stillness :  "  Whom  God  hath 
joined  together,  let  no  man  put  asunder.  I  beseech 
your  Honor,  put  not  away  this  woman  from  her 
wedded  husband  to  whom  she  has  been  ever  true, 
but  keep  them  still  together ;  and  erelong  some 
of  the  dispensations  of  life,  some  death-bed  repent- 


RUFUS   CHOATE. 


ance  of  a  false  witness,  giving  up  her  falsehood  with 
her  dying  breath,  some  sickness,  some  calamity 
touching  this  husband's  own  heart,  shall  medicine 
his  diseased  mind,  and  give  her  back  to  happiness 
and  love."  The  subduing  gentleness  and  plaintive 
beauty  of  this  appeal  to  the  stern  image  of  Justice, 
aptly  personified  in  the  single  judge,  sitting  silent 
before  him,  was  made  more  marked  by  the  bold, 
strong  way  in  which  Webster,  who  instantly  rose  to 
reply,  began  his  argument.  For,  conscious,  appar- 
ently, of  the  strong  sympathy  which  Choate  had 
raised,  he  launched  a  heavy  blow  at  this  feeling,  at 
the  outset.  He  opened  by  a  very  powerful,  but 
unpolished  and  inharmonious  comparison  of  the 
husband's  fate,  if  not  divorced,  to  the  punishment 
recorded  in  history  of  a  dead  and  decaying  body 
lashed  for  ever  to  the  living  and  breathing  form  of 
the  condemned  criminal.  The  impassioned  prayer 
of  the  wife's  advocate,  however,  was  destined  to 
prevail. 

The  rhythm  of  his  composition  we  do  not  think  is 
very  noticeable.  There  is  a  marked  rhythm  in  his 
delivery,  and  of  that  we  shall  speak  when  we  dis- 
cuss his  manner  ;  but  let  any  one,  unacquainted  with 
his  ordinary  way  of  speaking,  read  aloud  a  speech 
of  his,  and  he  will  perceive  the  want  of  any  musical 
quality,  such  as  constitutes  the  rhythm  of  prose  ;  a 
rhythm  not  like  that  of  poetry,  uniform  and  monot- 
onous, but  ever-changing,  and  rising  and  falling  like 
the  wild  music  of  the  wind-harps  of  the  leafless 
21 


242  THE   BAR. 

trees  in  autumn,  or  the  sobbing  and  shouting  of  the 
seas. 

His  oratorio  style,  we  think,  shows  for  itself,  that 
it  is-  very  much  pre-written.  And,  indeed,  the  piles 
of  paper  behind  which  he  rises  to  address  a  jury, 
and  which  disappear  as  he  goes  on,  cannot  all  be  the 
notes  of  evidence  in  the  case  ;  and  the  nice  and 
close  articulation  of  the  members  of  his  sentences, 
with  the  precise  placing  of  words,  —  words  not  meas- 
ured, but  fitted,  to  their  places,  —  make  it  certain 
that  he  subscribes  to  Lord  Brougham's  theory,  that 
vagueness  and  looseness  and  weakness  of  matter 
can  only  be  prevented  by  the  speaker's  careful,  pre- 
vious-written composition.  It  is  true  that  Choate 
often  seems  diffuse  and  wordy,  but  the  diffuseness 
is  an  exuberance  of  illustrative  idea,  and  words 
with  different  shades  of  meaning,  or  additions  of 
ornament,  not  mere  roundabout  paraphrases  to  get 
at  his  idea  the  best  way  he  can ;  he  strikes  out  his 
idea,  as  sharp  and  clear  as  the  head  on  a  gold  dollar, 
or  a  medallion  of  Louis  Napoleon  ;  but,  like  that,  it 
is  embossed  in  relief,  and  laurelled  with  imagery. 
And,  on  the  whole,  the  matter  of  his  speeches,  so 
successful  and  striking,  presents  a  splendid  and 
encouraging  example  of  the  union  of  general,  lib- 
eral, and  polite  culture,  with  the  close  and  austere 
elements  of  firmness  and  solidity,  which  only  hard 
work  can  give,  —  hard  work  among  books  and  hard 
work  among  men. 

Brougham's  productions,  some  of  them  at  least, 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  243 

have  been  called,  "law-papers  on  fire";  and  in  read- 
ing one  of  Choate's  speeches,  we  catch  the  move- 
ment and  velocity  of  a  most  fiery  mind,  evidently 
working  with  an  Arab-like  rapidity,  and  running 
faster  and  faster  in  its  course,  as  it  mounts  its  climax 
of  thought;  rapid,  close,  short,  hard-hitting  ques- 
tions, alternating  with  the  pictures  of  fancy  and 
the  breathings  of  passion ;  and,  as  in  the  midst  of 
the  ornament  and  the  rapture,  the  iron  links  of  the 
argument  roll  out  and  wind  closer  and  closer,  and 
the  ground-work  once  established,  is  gone  over  with 
confirming  and  victorious  emphasis  again  and  again ; 
the  ideas  crowd  thick  and  strong  on  the  mind,  the 
sentences  grow  fuller  of  meaning,  and  the  vigor  and 
solidity  of  the  whole  fabric  is,  as  if  the  lion's  mar- 
row of  strength  were  poured  into  the  dry  bones  of 
the  skeleton  argument. 

And  now,  having  thus  slightly  analyzed  Mr. 
Choate's  intellectual  enginery,  by  which  he  works 
for  his  results,  let  us  give  a  glance  at  him,  as  he 
speaks,  and  in  full  action.  There  are  many  orators 
who  rely  almost  exclusively  on  their  "  action  " ;  that 
is,  their  whole  delivery,  tones,  gestures,  manner, 
everything  ;  while  others  rely  mainly  on  their  exhibi- 
tive  and  enforcing  power  of  rhetoric ;  and  certainly 
the  modern  pulpit  reckons  its  brightest  stars  among 
those  whose  style  of  matter  is  a  regular  fancy  ara- 
besque. But  the  transcendent  legitimate  climax  of 
oratoric  power  will  never  be  attained  by  any  mere 
excellence  of  matter;  it  is  in  manner,  in  the  man. 


244  THE   BAH. 

That  terrible  outburst  of  power,  that  incomprehensi- 
ble Setz/oT^?,  so  awful,  so  irresistible,  with  which  the 
prince  of  orators,  in  the  most  celebrated  speech  yet 
spoken  upon  earth,  tore  "  the  crown "  from  the  un- 
willing hand  of  .^Eschines  and  set  it  for  ever  on  his 
own  forehead,  was  no  grace  of  matter,  but  a  tremen- 
dous, agonistic  style  of  passion  and  of  energy  in  the 
manner,  the  delivery,  the  man. 

Now,  in  their  manner,  some  men  of  note  are 
almost  exclusively  energetic  and  forcible ;  they  speak 
with  nerves  strung,  with  muscles  braced,  and  the 
whole  frame  erect  and  energized.  But,  usually, 
these  are  unmelodious  and  somewhat  harsh  in 
speaking,  though  effective.  Lord  Brougham  is 
such  a  speaker,  and  many  others  whom  we  could 
name,  not  quite  so  far  off.  Others,  again,  are  chiefly 
pathetic,  and  graceful,  and  harmonious  speakers, 
speaking  in  rather  a  conversational  way,  and  with 
a  grateful  cadence.  Kossuth  is,  we  think,  to  be 
thus  considered,  and  also  our  own  Wendell  Phillips. 
Either  of  these  men  can  speak  two  or  three  hours  to 
an  audience,  without  wearying  them;  and  if  fully 
aroused,  they  would  make  one  feel  that  it  was  worth 
walking  a  good  many  miles  to  hear  them;  but  the 
declaimers  of  the  merely  energetic  school  split  men's 
ears,  and  tire  them  out  in  three  quarters  of  an  hour. 
But  the  subject  of  this  sketch  seems  to  us  to  possess 
many  of  the  capital  excellences  of  both  these  classes. 
In  his  oratory  there  is  a  vehemence  and  a  rapidity 
of  utterance  perfectly  overpowering,  and  yet  a  musi- 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  245 

cal  flow  and  tone,  a  modulation  and  cadence,  a 
pathos  and  sweetness  of  inflection,  which  gives  him 
the  power  to  storm  our  souls  without  stunning  our 
ears.  There  is  nothing  (in  his  delivery)  like  the 
drum-beat  rolls  of  Father  Gavazzi's  intonations, 
pointing  with  fury  to  the  red-cross  upon  his  breast, 
and  launching  the  thunder  of  his  passion  at  the 
head  of  Rome  ;  nothing  of  the  hill-side  stormings  of 
Daniel  O'Connell  before  his  monster  meetings,  de- 
nouncing England;  but  there  is  tremendous  vehe- 
mence, nevertheless,  which  makes  itself  felt  chiefly  in 
the  rapid  rate  of  his  utterance,  and  in  the  emphatic 
stress  of  the  important  word  in  his  sentences ;  while 
all  the  rest,  the  less  important  words  and  the  ca- 
dences by  which,  as  it  were,  he  dismounts  and 
comes  down  from  his  lofty  heights  of  shouting  em- 
phasis, run  along  rich,  soft,  and  low,  sinking,  if  any- 
thing, even  too  far  down  toward  the  inaudible. 
Frequently  he  produces  a  very  bold  effect,  by  a 
fierce  head-shattering  emphasis,  and  then  dropping 
right  down  instantly  to  the  simplest  colloquialism. 

He  does  not,  however,  speak  in  the  conversa- 
tional way.  It  used  to  be  said  of  Harrison  Gray 
Otis,  that  when  you  met  him  in  State  Street,  and 
heard  him  talk  about  property,  you  heard  the  orator 
Otis  almost  as  much  as  if  he  were  in  Faneuil  Hall, 
talking  about  politics.  But  nobody  could  imagine, 
from  talking  with  E-ufus  Choate,  that  they  had  heard 
the  orator  Choate.  His  delivery  is  the  most  rapid 
and  sustained  and  emphatic  which  we  have  ever 
21* 


246  THE  BAR. 

heard,  except  from  the  great  temperance  advocate, 
Gough  ;  while  it  has  a  musical  flow  and  rhythm 
and  cadence,  more  like  a  long  and  rising  and  swell- 
ing song,  than  a  talk,  or  an  argument.  Indeed,  his 
rhythm  is  so  marked,  that  on  first  hearing  him  it 
seems  a  little  like  sing-song,  but  this  impression  soon 
wears  off,  and  gives  way  to  a  pleasing  sensation  of 
relief,  which  otherwise  his  vehemence  might  prevent. 
Not  possessing  that  liquid  melody  of  tone,  which 
in  the  common  accent  of  aggreeable  conversation 
seizes  and  fills  the  ear ;  not  speaking,  indeed,  in  any 
degree  in  the  conversational  key,  which,  when  well 
done,  will  by  its  variety  of  inflection,  by  its  ever- 
changing  rhythm  and  naturalness,  hold  the  hearer 
enchained  for  a  long  time;  he  relies  on  this  ex- 
tremely nimble  and  feverish  style  of  utterance,  to 
seize  the  hearer's  mind,  and  keep  him  running  along 
with  him  at  a  top-speed,  till  either  he  chooses  to  let 
go,  or  the  auditor,  entirely  exhausted  though  not  dis- 
enchanted, drops  off  himself.  This  style  is  fatiguing 
to  listen  to  in.  a  speaker,  although  fascinating  when 
habit  or  genius  makes  it  natural ;  because  one's 
nerves  and  faculties  get  strung  and  driven  on  to 
such  a  degree  from  involuntary  sympathy  with  the 
speaker,  that  the  hearer  is  almost  equally  exhausted 
when  the  peroration  comes  as  the  performer  himself. 
Henry  Clay,  in  a  great  speech,  would  move  on 
through  the  oratoric  voyage,  as  gracefully  as  a  great 
ship,  whose  snowy  plumage  ruffles  and  shivers  in  va- 
rious breezes,  stormy  and  placid  by  turns,  but  whose 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  247 

movement  is  always  majestic,  serene,  and  swan- 
like  o'er  the  sea  ;  but  Choate  is  a  steam-propeller, 
on  the  high-pressure  principle,  —  rushing  and  spat- 
tering and  foaming  and  tearing  ahead  at  a  dead  rate 
all  the  way.  His  melody  is  one  steady  tune  all  the 
time ;  its  modulations  and  intonations  diversified 
and  distinct,  but  all  servient  to  one  dominant  prin- 
ciple of  melody,  whose  general  character  is  perma- 
nently stamped  on  all  he  utters ;  even  like  "  the 
multitudinous  laughter  "  of  the  waves,  mingling  with 
crashing  breakers  and  sobbing  billows,  but  all  sub- 
ordinate to,  and  finally  lost  in,  the  one  great  ocean 
diapason,  —  the  grand,  majestic  music  of  the  sea. 
Somewhat  in  the  same  way,  at  least  as  far  as  re- 
gards unbroken  velocity,  William  Pinkney  spoke,  — 
the  most  brilliant  legal  speaker,  before  Choate,  in  this 
country,  to  whom  Benton,  in  his  "  Thirty  Years  in 
the  Senate,"  attributes  the  greatest  contemporary  re- 
pute of  eloquence  in  America.  In  the  first  moments 
of  his  speech  he  did  not  win,  but  rather  repulsed  you  ; 
but  gathering  headway,  he  gained  more  and  more 
upon  you,  till  soon  he  took  the  helm  of  your  mind 
and  led  you  hither  and  thither  as  the  frenzy  and  the 
mood  swept  over  him.  And  precisely  the  same  thing 
we  have  heard  said  of  Mr.  Choate,  by  a  great  and 
experienced  authority ;  for  the  eminent  critic  declared 
that  he  listened  to  Choate's  Webster  speech  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  at  first  with  dislike  and  then  with  indiffer- 
ence, but  soon  with  delight ;  till  presently  the  orator 
got  full  command  of  him,  and  for  the  moment  swept 
him  wherever  he  would. 


248  THE  BAR. 

Although  this  railroad  rapidity  of  movement  in 
his  elocution  conduces  thus  to  his  general  effect,  and 
as  a  whole,  perhaps,  gets  fuller  command  of  an  audi- 
ence, yet  it  certainly  very  much  weakens  the  effect 
of  particular  passages.  We  have  heard  the  most 
affecting  and  illustrative  periods  rattled  off  by  him 
so  as  to  call  no  particular  attention  to  them ;  a  mere 
dropping  fire  of  distant  musketry,  when  they  should 
have  been  delivered  with  all  the  deliberateness,  pre- 
cision, and  emphasis  of  minute-guns.  Grattan  tells 
us  he  heard  Lord  Chatham  speak  in  the  House  of 
Lords ;  and  it  was  just  like  talking  to  one  man  by 
the  button-hole,  except  when  he  lifted  himself  in  en- 
thusiasm, and  then  the  effect  of  the  outbreak  was 
immense.  But  Choate  is  off  from  the  word  "  Go ! " 
and  is  all  along  on  the  high  ropes,  and  bounding  up 
like  a  full-blooded  racer  all  the  time ;  consequently, 
the  effect  of  all  the  higher  passages  is  damaged,  the 
whole  is  so  high ;  we  cannot  have  mountains  unless 
we  have  valleys. 

He  throws  the  same  fiery  enthusiasm  into  every- 
thing, —  a  great  case  or  a  little  one,  —  a  great  speech 
or  a  common  occasion.  The^  client  who  retains  this 
great  advocate  may  always  be  assured  that  he  gets 
the  whole  of  him ;  blood,  brains,  everything,  —  his 
inspiration  and  his  perspiration,  —  all  are  fully  given 
to  him.  And  in  managing  his  oratoric  artillery  he 
shows  great  tact  and  skill,  for  his  reputation  as  a 
master  of  eloquent  whirlwinds  is  such,  and  a  jury  are 
so  often  cautioned  on  this  account  by  the  opposing 


RTJFUS   CHOATE.  249 

counsel  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  for  him,  that  it  is 
often  necessary  to  approach  his  hearer's  mind  with 
unpretending  simplicity,  to  dissipate  his  fears  a  little 
and  get  him  under  way  gently,  before  he  can  be 
whirled  into  the  vortex.  We  once  heard  a  lawyer 
who  had  often  heard  Choate  speak,  declare  that  the 
finest  exhibition  of  eloquence  he  ever  heard  from  him 
was  in  a  little  country  office,  before  a  judge  of  pro- 
bate, upon  the  proving  of  a  will.  It  was  a  winter 
morning,  and  the  judge  sat  before  the  fire  with  his 
feet  up  in  the  most  careless  manner.  He  evidently 
had  a  great  contempt  for  oratory  as  applied  to  law, 
and  was  quite  resolved  to  have  none  of  it ;  so  turn- 
ing up  his  head  as  he  saw  the  counsel  for  the  heir 
looking  at  a  pile  of  notes,  he  said,  in  the  most  indif- 
ferent way,  "  If  you've  any  objections  to  make,  Mr. 
Choate,  just  state  them  now."  (The  idea  of  asking 
Rufus  Choate  to  "just  state"  anything!)  Choate 
began  in  the  most  tame  manner  he  could  assume,  by 
running  over  a  few  dry  legal  saws  and  some  musty 
and  absurd  principles  of  law,  governing  wills.  The 
old  judge  began  to  prick  up  his  ears ;  soon  the  argu- 
ment advanced  from  a  mere  legal  principle  to  a  tri- 
fling but  telling  illustration  of  it,  couched,  however, 
as  far  as  possible,  in  legal  phraseology ;  the  judge 
gave  more  attention,  and  the  advocate  enforced  the 
illustration  by  a  very  energetic  argument,  but  not  yet 
flowery;  and  speedily  the  judge's  legs  came  down 
one  after  the  other,  his  body  turned  round,  and  his 
eyes  were  fixed  on  the  speaker ;  and  at  last,  as  he 


250  THE  BAR. 

rose  into  his  congenial  and  unfettered  field  of  argu- 
ment, and  pictured  with  flaming  passion  the  conse- 
quences to  the  whole  domestic  and  social  state  of 
New  England,  if  the  construction  for  which  he  con- 
tended should  not  be  applied  to  the  wills  of  the  far- 
mers of  New  England,  the  judge  fairly  nodded  in 
admiring  acquiescence,  and  the  unequalled  advocate 
carried  the  case  and  the  tribunal,  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet. 

The  vanquished  judge  was  only  in  the  same  pre- 
dicament with  many  an  obdurate  jury.  Through- 
out the  whole  of  a  jury  argument,  you  see  the  reso- 
lute, unflagging  will  working  on  the  twelve  men. 
When  he  woos  and  persuades,  or  when,  with  more 
determination,  he  seems  to  say,  "  you  shall  believe 
it,"  at  all  times  alike,  by  look,  by  expression  of  face, 
by  everything,  he  seems  to  say  first,  —  "  do  believe 
it,  but  if  you  won't,  you  shall  believe  it."  We  saw 
him  once  walk  right  up  to  a  juror  who  sat  on  the 
front  seat  of  the  jury-box,  looking  doggedly  incredu- 
lous, —  right  up  close  to  him  he  walked,  and  bring- 
ing down  his  clenched  fist  almost  in  his  very  eyes, 
"  Sir,"  said  he,  "  give  me  your  attention,  and  I 
pledge  myself  to  make  this  point  wholly  clear  to 
you."  The  poor  man  looked  more  crestfallen  and 
criminal  than  the  accused  prisoner ;  he  opened  his 
eyes  and  his  ears  too  ;  one  after  another  the  fortifi- 
cations in  which  he  had  intrenched  his  resolution  for 
"  a  verdict  against  Choate,"  went  slambang  by  the 
board  under  the  resistless  forensic  cannonading,  and 


RUFUS  CHOATB.  251 


a  verdict  for  defendant  sealed  the  success  of 
daring  declamation. 

He  rarely,  however,  uses  invective  or  the  fiercer 
and  more  grand  styles  of  controversy;  but  through 
all  he  rather  coaxes  and  leads  and  lulls,  occasionally 
only  astonishing  and  compelling  assent  by  thunder- 
ing bravuras  of  oratory.  A  tender  and  melancholy 
strain  pervades  his  utterances,  like  the  air  of  a  song 
whose  thoughts  we  take  in  with  our  minds,  but 
whose  feeling  floats  into  our  hearts  on  the  gentle 
music  which  accompanies  the  words,  running 
through  melodious  variations  to  a  loving  and  sor- 
rowing cadence.  And  often  when  his  glances  and 
tones  show  him  to  be  "  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling,"  sud- 
denly, as  if  some  soft  south-wind  of  association  and 
emotion  stole  over  him,  he  will  sink  on  to  the  soft 
pedal  of  his  vocal  instrument,  and  a  little  episode  of 
delicate  and  sad  fancies  will  shoot  into  the  coarse 
web  of  his  argument,  dropping  as  gently  from  his 
lips  as  dew  upon  the  flowers.  No  matter  how  ve- 
mently  he  lifts  his  voice,  no  matter  if  in  the  frenzy 
of  passion  he  breaks  out  in  some  mad  and  almost 
bedlamitish  shout,  he  will  speedily  sink  into  the  lap 
of  a  cadence  mournfully  beautiful,  falling  upon  the 
half-shocked  ear  as  west-winds  on  the  half-crushed 
rose-buds.  In  the  speech  to  which  we  have  before 
referred,  where  he  pictured  the  mourning  of  Mexico, 
in  the  funeral  songs  of  her  dark  daughters,  chanting, 
"  Ah,  woe  is  me,  Alhamra,  for  a  thousand  years  !  " 
the  accents  rung  and  moaned  through  that  old 


252  THE   BAR. 

Faneuil  Hall,  like  the  lamenting  wail  of  a  banished 
harpist,  sweeping  the  chords  of  his  country's  memory. 
So  universal  and  so  mournful  is  the  pathetic  ele- 
ment of  his  delivery,  that  it  would  require  no  very 
wild  flight  of  romance  to  fancy  Calliope  herself,  the 
Muse  of  Eloquence,  mingling  for  ever  with  the  tones 
of  her  most  favored  child  her  own  laments  for  her 
"  lost  art "  of  perfect  oratory. 

Mr.  Choate's  "action,"  as  far  as  bodily  gesture 
and  presence  is  concerned,  does  not  materially  aid 
his  eloquence.  Some  orators'  pantomime  is  the  per- 
fect painting  of  their  thoughts  ;  in  the  prophetic  ex- 
pression glancing  o'er  their  face  like  shadows  on  a 
summer's  sea ;  in  the  discriminating  gesture,  each 
one  telling  its  own  story  with  perfect  honesty ;  in 
the  bodily  bendings,  appealing  or  enforcing,  the 
whole  story  is  told.  As  the  man  said  who  was 
somewhat  deaf,  and  could  not  get  near  to  Clay  in 
one  of  his  finest  efforts,  "  I  did  n't  hear  a  word  he 
said,  but,  Great  Jehovah !  did  n't  he  make  the 
motions!"  But  in  Choate,  the  deaf  man  looking 
at  him  would  see  a  gesture  comparatively  uniform, 
and  chiefly  expressive  only  of  degrees  of  energy,  and 
a  countenance  mainly  indicative  of  only  more  or 
less  intensity  of  nervous  passion.  His  countenance 
is  by  no  means  the  looking-glass  of  his  soul.  It  is 
too  sallow  and  bilious ;  the  deepest  shadows  alone 
are  visible  on  its  dark  disk. 

He  has,  however,  one  extraordinary  instrument  of 
gesture,  rarely  if  ever  used  before ;  and  that  is  his 


EDFUS   CHOATE.  253 

legs.  For  it  is  a  frequent  resort  of  his,  by  way  of 
emphasis,  to  spring  up,  by  bracing  all  his  muscles, 
and  settle  himself  down  again  on  his  heels,  with  a 
force  which  often  actually  shakes  the  whole  court- 
room. 

His  voice  is  rich  and  deep,  not  resonant  and  metal- 
lic, —  a  quality  which  all  out-of-door  speakers  must 
have,  —  but  rather  woody  and  deficient  in  "  timbre." 
In  dress,  he  looks  as  if  his  clothes  had  been  flung  at 
his  body  and  stuck  there.  His  cravat  is  a  type  of 
his  whole  costume;  that  was  once  well  said  "to 
meet  in  an  indescribable  tie,  which  seems  like  a 
fortuitous  concurrence  of  original  atoms." 

With  many  orators,  the  spring  of  the  neck  from 
the  shoulders  gives  a  great  characteristic  effect  of 
manner,  to  the  throwing  out  of  their  words.  Web- 
ster's massive  neck,  springing  from  his  shoulders  like 
the  solid  oak,  enforced  every  emphasis.  Chatham's 
lofty  look  was  greatly  due  to  the  set  of  his  head ; 
and  of  Rachel,  the  tragedienne,  it  is  said  that  a  cer- 
tain harmonious  distance  between  her  well-formed 
ear  and  her  shoulders  lends  great  effect  to  her  cor- 
rect gesticulation  and  her  dignified  attitudes.  But 
Choate  has  hardly  any  elements  of  figure  or  person 
peculiarly  favorable  to  oratory,  except  his  eyes ;  they 
send  forth  lightnings,  and  sparkle  and  burn  like  a 
fire-eyed  worshipper  of  the  East.  It  is  rather  in 
spite  of  his  physique,  in  spite  of  nature  and  his 
stars,  as  Pinkney  said  of  Fox,  that  he  is  a  first-class 
orator. 


254  THE  BAB. 

And  we  think,  with  profound  deference  to  so  great 
an  authority,  that  he  rather  makes  a  mistake  in  neg- 
lecting action,  and  relying  too  exclusively  on  mere 
vehemence,  and  weight  of  ear-filling  words  and  ear- 
catching  thoughts.  For,  after  all,  for  the  mass  of 
mankind,  action,  not  composition,  is  the  thing, — 
oratory,  not  rhetoric.  The  brilliant  uniforms  of  the 
sunshine  soldiery  will  do  for  a  dress-parade,  but  they 
are  in  the  way  in  battle  ;  for  business,  for  profit,  for 
victory,  we  want  the  old  gray  coats  and  no  wadding 
but  the  solid  bone  and  muscle  in  them.  And  if 
Demosthenes  were  to  rise  from  his  ashes  in  the 
urn  to-day,  he  could  never  say  a  better  thing  than 
he  did,  when  thrice  he  answered  the  thrice-asked 
question,  What  is  the  essence  of  oratory  ?  "  Action, 
action,  action! "  By  action  he  meant  no  mere  school 
of  gesture,  but  every  bodily  element  of  expression 
of  thought,  —  the  vocality,  the  passion,  the  whole 
movement. 

But  we  must  finish  our  picture,  feeling,  after  all, 
great  disappointment  that  we  can  give  no  better 
idea  of  this  strange  and  incomprehensible  orator.  He 
cannot  be  daguerreotyped,  he  can  only  be  hinted  at ; 
and  as  we  have  heard  a  painter  say  of  a  provokingly 
elusive  face,  you  must  make  a  memorandum  of  the 
countenance,  and  let  fancy  do  the  rest.  The  faint 
idea  which  a  literally  exact  speech  reported  would 
give  cannot  be  had,  for  no  reporter  can  follow  him ; 
and  after  a  speech  he  can't  tell  what  he  said. 
There,  are  his  copious  notes  to  be  sure,  at  your  ser- 


RUFUS   CHOATE.  255 

vice,  which  he  can't  read,  and  the  man  has  yet  to 
be  born  of  woman  who  can. 

There  have  been  moments  when,  in  speaking  for 
the  life  of  a  man,  he  rose  above  himself,  his  head 
grew  classic  and  commanding,  his  form  towered  up 
into  heroic  impressiveness,  and  then,  indeed,  he 
grasped  the  thunderbolt ;  for  then  it  was  given  him 
faintly  to  shadow  forth  that  consummate  eloquence, 
the  dream  and  the  ideal  of  Antiquity  ;  —  the  unap- 
proached  combination  of  logic  and  learning,  and 
poetry  and  passion,  and  music  and  action,  all  in  one 
flashing  cloud,  rolling  electric  over  men,  —  the  most 
imposing  form  of  power  which  God  has  ever  given 
into  the  hands  of  men. 

Other  jury  advocates  may  surpass  him  in  single 
points  ;  but  take  him  for  all  in  all,  we  think  he 
brings  more  varied  and  higher  qualities,  more  intel- 
lectual weight  of  metal  to  the  bar,  than  any  man  of 
our  time  who  has  made  legal  advocacy  the  almost 
exclusive  theatre  of  his  energies  and  his  fame. 
Erskine  may  have  had  more  simple  grace  of  diction 
and  a  more  quiet  and  natural  passion ;  Curran  may 
have  had  an  equally  impassioned  but  more  un- 
studied rush  of  fervor,  in  his  Celtic  raptures  ;  Ogden 
Hoffman  may  be  more  naturally  melodious  in  his 
rhythm,  suggesting  more  vividly  the  fable  of  him 
who  had  a  nest  of  singing-birds  in  his  throat ;  and 
possibly  Pinkney  may  have  had  a  harder  legal  head, 
for  laying  the  foundations  of  his  legal  rhetoric  ;  but 
when  we  consider  that  he  adds  to  so  many  forensic 


256  THE   BAR. 

arts  such  wide-varying  intellectual  accomplishment, 
—  almost  satisfying  Cicero's  magnificent  myth  of 
him  who  should  make  himself  most  illustrious  of  ora- 
tors, by  first  being  the  foremost  man  in  every  branch 
of  learning  which  men  could  talk  about,  —  then  we 
unhesitatingly  rank  him  the  first  orator,  as  well  as 
most  formidable  advocate,  who  now,  in  any  quarter 
of  the  globe  where  the  English  language  is  spoken, 
is  ever  seen  standing  before  the  jury  panel. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  PLATPOEM. 

IT  is  on  the  Platform  that  American  eloquence  is 
now  most  frequently  enjoyed.  The  love  of  elo- 
quence in  some  form  is  natural  to  all  men.  Hardly 
any  one,  civilized  or  barbarian,  refuses  to  be  stirred 
by  the  sonorous  music  of  vigorous  speech,  even 
though  he  may  only  feel  it  without  much  reference 
to  the  thought  rousing  his  blood  like  the  drums 
and  cymbals  of  military  bands.  And  from  the  days 
when  those  soldiers  of  the  beaten  armament  of 
Athens  in  the  Syracusan  Crimea  who  could  repeat 
the  inspiring  passages  of  ^Eschylus  and  the  other 
tragic  poets,  were  pardoned  by  the  appreciating  sen- 
sibility of  Sicily,  to  the  moment  when  Lamartine 
calmed  the  bannered  ranks  of  insurgent  France  by 
those  strains  of  poetically  martial  oratory  in  which 
he  besought  them  not  to  dishonor  the  tricolor,  which 
had  been  the  victorious  round  of  every  capital  in 
Europe,  —  always,  among  every  people,  eloquence 
has  been,  not  only  a  delight,  but  a  power  among 
men.  Under  no  government,  however,  and  among 
22* 


258  THE   PLATFORM. 

no  people  has  popular  eloquence  ever  been  more 
encouraged  than  in  this  American  democracy. 

In  its  earlier  years.  Congress  gave  the  most  ap- 
propriate theatre  for  its  exhibition.  But,  as  was 
shown  in  the  beginning  of  this  volume,  Congress 
has  now  become  a  theatre  for  political  management 
rather  than  personal  magnetism,  —  in  politics  the 
checkerboard  supersedes  the  rostrum.  The  Bar  also 
for  many  years  exhibited  a  great  field  of  high  debate. 
On  legal  topics,  Alexander  Hamilton  spoke  with  a 
stately  strength  and  beauty  of  logic  not  inferior  in 
many  elements  of  impressiveness  even  to  Pinkney. 
But  the  progress  of  commerce  and  the  closing  up  of 
open  legal  questions  draw  the  green-baize  curtains 
of  business  around  the  judgment-seats,  and  exclude 
from  jurisprudence  nearly  all  "  gladsome  light." 

The  Platform,  then,  alone  is  left ;  and  by  this 
term  we  include  all  oratory  which  is  not  legal 
or  parliamentary ;  all  pulpit-speaking  as  well  as 
stump-speaking.  It  is  in  this  direction  that  the 
taste  for  eloquence  and  its  expression  now  violently 
tends.  If  it  were  not  for  this  theatre  of  perform- 
ance, our  genius  for  speaking  would  be  smothered. 
After  hearing  of  the  death  of  Hortensius,  his  be- 
loved exemplar,  Cicero  styled  the  eloquence  of  the 
Romans  "  an  orphan  eloquence."  Were  it  not  for 
the  caucus  and  other  platforms,  which  here  throw 
open  to  it  a  stage,  we  might  style  that  of  the 
Americans,  not  only  an  "  orphan,"  but  a  homeless 
eloquence.  Manacled  in  the  Courts  and  persecuted 


THE   PLATFORM.  259 

in  Congress,  it  has  flown  to  the  Platform,  and  there 
expatiates  free,  bold,  and  unconfined. 

On  the  Platform  is  heard  all  our  political  speak- 
ing which  appeals  directly  to  the  people  the  con- 
stituents as  well  as  the  representative ;  there  the 
popular  passions  can  be  directly  invoked ;  the  broad 
est  farce  of  humor  or  the  most  cutting  slashes  of 
satire  may  be  flourished  off,  and  the  most  impas- 
sioned furies  of  declamation  may  be  adventured 
upon  ;  there  also  all  eulogistic  addresses  to  living 
great  men  are  made  amid  cheers  and  choral  music, 
and  all  panegyrical  tributes  to  the  unforgotten  dead 
are  solemnly  paid  with  tokens  of  gloom  augmenting 
the  solemnity ;  there  national  pride  utters  the  lofty 
language  of  national  hope  on  the  gala-days  of  the 
Republic,  and  anniversary  jubilation  of  every  kind 
swells  the  glad  strain  of  festal  speech. 

But  most  important  of  all,  the  Platform  is  the 
instrument  for  all  reforms.  Whatever  wrongs  are 
to  be  redressed,  whatever  rights  are  to  be  vindicated, 
remotely  or  immediately,  by  the  action  of  the  peo- 
ple, it  is  there  the  appeal  to  the  great  popular  heart 
is  made.  Civil  reforms,  political  reforms,  moral 
reforms,  all  send  their  representative  "  agitators " 
to  argue  for  them  before  that  mighty  Areopagus. 
It  speaks  creditably  for  the  nature  of  humanity, 
that  the  universal  and  instinctive  impulses  of  the 
mass  of  men,  taken  together,  are  good  and  even 
nobly  enthusiastic ;  especially  where  their  own  per- 
sonal interests  do  not  mix  in  with  the  subject-mat- 


THE  PLATFORM. 

ter.  Upon  these  broad  sympathies  of  the  popular 
soul  the  Platform  levels  its  guns,  shotted  with  all  the 
humane  thoughts,  progressive  reforms,  and  the  in- 
spiring views  which  philanthropists  or  demagogues 
can  command,  for  public  or  private  objects.  As  far 
at  least  as  appearances  and  professions  go,  the  Plat- 
form is  not  only  a  battery,  but  a  sacred  altar,  on 
which  the  best  thoughts  for  humanity  and  the  sub- 
limest  enthusiasms  of  disinterested  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  the  public,  are  perpetually  offered  up  ;  while 
around  that  altar  the  popular  gatherings  seem  to 
surge  and  eddy  like  the  seas,  as  the  orators  lash  or 
lull  the  waves  of  popular  emotion. 

In  England,  as  in  America,  great  reform  move- 
ments rely  on  the  Platform  for  their  momentum ; 
and  thither  accordingly,  with  the  English  as  well 
as  with  us,  the  Muse  of  Eloquence  directs  her  steps. 
Many  men  in  England  have  won  position  and 
maintained  influence  solely  by  their  power  upon  the 
Platform,  quite  outside  and  independent  of  Parlia- 
ment. 

We  happened  to  see  in  the  fall  of  1856,  at  a 
political  mass-meeting,  a  capital  proof  of  the  force 
with  which  good  speaking  still  carries  everything 
before  it  with  the  multitude,  and  the  abundant  op- 
portunity still  afforded  in  this  way  upon  the  Plat- 
form for  its  display.  Upon  the  stage  were  seated 
men  whose  names  were  powers  in  the  world  of 
letters  and  of  politics ;  upon  the  floor  was  assem- 
bled an  audience  of  every  stripe  and  shade  of  hu- 


THE  PLATFORM.  261 

manity,  mingling  and  churning  in  a  sort  of  po- 
litical broth,  such  as  only  an  American  mass-meet- 
ing can  produce.  In  leaving  the  hall,  after  the 
valedictory  "  nine  cheers "  had  crashed  upon  the 
ear,  we  happened  to  encounter  a  learned  and  well- 
known  person,  who  had  been  observed  in  the  course 
of  the  evening  closely  intent  upon  the  golden  utter- 
ances of  the  speaker ;  we  asked  him  how  he  liked 
it,  —  expecting  a  reply  expressing  the  affected  con- 
tempt of  dry  erudition,  for  any  exhibition  of  the 
Fine  Arts,  —  but  to  our  gratification  he  replied, 
"  As  that  man  went  on,  I  almost  felt  an  entire  sus- 
pension of  my  self-control,  especially  when  he 
warmed  into  the  white  heat  of  his  passion."  Sur- 
prised no  less  than  satisfied,  we  elbowed  our  way 
along,  and  soon  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  from 
the  other  end  of  the  social  scale;  for  suddenly  the 
crush  upon  the  stairs  pushed  us  against  a  gruff, 
coarse-looking  person,  who  might  have  been  a  horse- 
jockey  for  aught  in  his  appearance  to  contradict  it. 
But  just  at  that  moment  he  was  delivering  like  Jack 
Bunsby  his  opinion;  and  though  his  judgment  was 
expressed  in  a  homely  manner,  it  was  decisive.  Said 
he  to  his  companion,  "  That  fellow  spoke  first-rate ; 
I  didn't  exactly  get  the  whole  idea,  but  I  do  love  to 
hear  'em  reel  it  off  so  slick.  I  '11  vote  for  him,  you 
better  believe  "  ;  and  so  saying,  a  wave  of  people 
swallowed  him  up  and  gulped  him  down  stairs  out 
of  further  hearing.  But  in  these  brief  moments  we 
had  heard  the  criticism  and  the  taste  of  the  head- 


262  THE  PLATFORM. 

piece  and  the  tail-piece  of  the  multitude  of  Ameri- 
cans. To  that  criticism,  as  identical  in  spirit  as  it 
was  contrasted  in  expression,  all  the  people  would 
have  said  "  Amen ! " 

In  the  previous  exhibition  of  American  Orators,  the 
growth  of  a  country  with  a  taste  like  this,  we  have 
viewed  the  first  man  of  the  Senate,  Henry  Clay,  and 
the  first  man  of  the  Bar,  Rufus  Choate ;  let  us  now 
hear  the  Pulpit  and  the  Platform  speak,  out  of  the 
mouths  of  Edward  Everett,  Wendell  Phillips,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  and  Edwin  H.  Chapin. 

EDWAKD    EVEEETT. 

THE  history  of  man  exhibits  two  modes  of  attain- 
ing a  fascinating  glory,  —  prompt,  personal,  and  im- 
mediate ;  one  is  by  the  battle  of  war,  the  other  by 
the  battle  of  words.  The  warrior  and  the  orator 
concentrate  upon  themselves  the  glare  of  contempo- 
rary glory.  Other  modes  win  wide  regard  and  long 
repute ;  but  to  see  the  sorcerer  in  the  very  midst  of 
his  dazzling  "action,"  to  sigh  or  shout  under  the 
magic  pressure  of  his  personal  sympathy ;  in  com- 
pany with  the  thousands  to  feel  your  heart  beat  time 
to  his  thinking,  —  with  what  rapture  of  admiration 
do  we  acknowledge  this  soft  dominion,  —  these  silk- 
en chains  upon  our  will,  —  this  delightful  regency  of 
our  whole  being ! 

To  men  who  feel  the  goad  and  sting  of  high  genius, 
these  fields  give  invitation  irresistible.  Some  have 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  263 

excelled  in  both,  many  in  one  of  them.  The  first 
warrior  of  the  world,  Caesar,  was  not  satisfied  with 
the  fame  of  being  the  only  rival  in  history  to  Alex- 
ander the  Conqueror ;  but  labored  till  he  had  added 
to  his  renown  the  epithet  of  "  splendid,"  as  applied 
to  his  eloquence  by  the  first  orator  of  his  world, 
Tally. 

Great  minds  of  a  popular  intellectual  cast  have  of 
necessity  a  passion  for  popular  regard,  —  for  the  gen- 
eral promiscuous  popularity  of  the  miscellaneous 
million.  The  moderate  approbation  of  careful  schol- 
ars, the  serene  plaudits  of  "  mutual  admiration  soci- 
eties," do  not  and  cannot  satisfy  the  appetite  of  their 
world-sympathizing  genius.  He  who  can  play  ex- 
quisitely upon  the  people's  heart-strings  must  play 
upon  them,  to  be  happy.  And  in  reply  to  his  play- 
ing he  must  hear,  like  the  bards  and  harpers  of  song, 
the  hurras  and  hand-clappings  dictated  by  the  uni- 
versal human  heart,  independent  of  education,  asso- 
ciation, and  acquaintance. 

This  is  not  vanity.  It  is  the  instinctive  yearning 
for  a  broader,  heartier,  and,  so  to  speak,  more  massive 
sympathy  than  literati  or  classes  can  give. 

Edward  Everett  has  been  an  American  Senator, 
an  Ambassador,  an  heir  presumptive  to  the  Presiden- 
cy in  the  lineage  of  popular  regard.  He  has  won  the 
laurel  of  the  first  literary  mind  in  his  country,  with 
that  laurel  the  bays  of  Poetry  have  been  twined ;  a 
universal  accomplishment  in  studies  and  arts  has 
crowned  his  fame  by  its  universal  recognition.  Yet 


264  THE   PLATFORM. 

all  to  him  is  less  charming  than  the  trophies  of  elo- 
quence. In  oratory  he  seeks  the  close,  the  crown, 
the  consummation  of  his  glittering  career.  There, 
in  that  honor,  in  that  style  of  activity  which  first 
gave  him  to  the  personal  homage,  not  of  a  set  but 
of  the  multitude,  he  would  take  his  last  and  best  de- 
gree ;  on  that  pillar,  like  a  champion  who  fights  no 
more,  he  would  lean  and  hang  his  emblazoned  shield 
on  high.  So  Cicero  thought  his  exquisitely  elaborated 
Treatises  worthless,  when  compared  with  his  thril- 
ling and  immortal  Orations.  Rome  was  their  audi- 
ence then ;  the  world  is  their  audience  now. 

The  occasion  upon  which  we  heard  Everett  speak 
in  his  most  affecting  manner,  and  for  poetry  and  pa- 
thos perhaps  his  very  best  manner,  was  upon  the  for- 
mal announcement  to  the  city  of  Boston  that  the 
greatest  of  her  sons  had  ceased  to  live. 

Boston  was  in  her  agony  of  grief  for  him  whom 
but  a  few  months  before  she  had  borne  to  the  sound 
of  trumpet  and  the  beat  of  drum,  in  triumph  through 
her  streets.  The  occasion  was  an  admirable  one  for 
the  most  quiet  but  the  rarest  oratory.  The  citizens 
had  assembled  in  Faneuil  Hall.  They  were  crowd- 
ing around  that  rostrum  where  he  who  should  speak 
no  more  for  ever  had  often  spoken  to  them.  All 
eyes  turned  to  Everett  to  give  voice  to  their  sorrow. 
Everett  was  his  personal  and  devoted  friend.  His 
eyes,  >his  heart,  his  mind,  seemed  full  of  tears  and 
tearful  thoughts.  He  came  to  bury  Caesar  and  to 
praise  him. 


EDWARD    EVERETT. 

It  was  high  noon  ;  midday  flung  a  broad  light  on 
the  great  canvas  upon  which  that  already  historic 
form  stood  forth  in  the  commanding  lines  of  life; 
and  the  stately  figure  of  the  dead  man  seemed  lying 
in  its  princely  proportions  in  the  centre  of  that  old 
Boston  Hall;  summoned  thither  in  imagination  by 
the  imperious  demand  of  the  city's  stricken  heart, 
beating  for  once  with  an  almost  impassioned  sorrow, 
for  one  man,  with  one  great  grief. 

All  was  still,  —  very  still,  —  almost  a  coffin-still- 
ness in  that  thronged  hall.  Then,  with  the  tears 
scarce  dried  on  a  cheek  deadly  pale,  Edward  Everett 
stepped  out  before  the  people  ;  he  looked  behind  him, 
—  there  was  the  historic  man,  standing  upon  the 
painted  theatre  of  his  greatest  action ;  he  looked  be- 
fore him,  —  there  was  the  living  man  painted  once 
more  in  the  glistening  eyes  of  the  people  of  the  city 
of  his  love  ;  then  he  spoke,  —  softly  and  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  the  spirit  of  the  scene.  There  was  no 
labored  swell  of  panegyric;  you  saw  no  Bossuet 
with  grand  funeral  declamation  moving  in  awe-strik- 
ing syllables  through  periods  of  Oriental  pomp,  — 
rather  a  gentle  Flechier  telling  a  multitude  the  sad 
story,  with  the  poetic  graces  of  finished  art ;  chok- 
ing almost  with  a  real  sorrow,  moaning  through 
melodious  cadences,  and  reaching  all  hearts  with  the 
touches  of  his  own  true,  heart-felt  lamentations. 

And,  as  he  drew  the  departed  great  man  with  such 
fidelity  yet  felicity ;  taking  the  citizens  by  the  hand 
as  it  were,  and  leading  them  one  by  one  around  the 
23 


266  THE   PLATFORM. 

bier,  to  look  their  last  upon  that  "  godlike  face  to 
which  no  canvas  has  ever  done  justice,"  differences 
of  political  opinion  were  for  one  hour  hushed,  and 
for  one  hour  the  eulogist  of  Webster  spoke  to  a  unit 
city. 

The  occasion  upon  which  Everett  first  came  prom- 
inently before  the  general  public,  as  an  orator,  was 
in  pronouncing  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Oration  at 
Cambridge,  before  the  University  in  1824.  It  was  a 
time  of  great  interest  on  account  of  the  visit  of  Gen- 
eral Lafayette  in  his  old  age  to  the  country  for  which 
he  had  struggled  in  his  youth  with  such  philanthrop- 
ic chivalry.  The  land  was  all  astir.  As  the  war- 
scarred  hero  went  through  it,  village,  hamlet,  and 
metropolis  alike  resounded  with  acclamations ;  and 
now,  with  the  cheering  of  New  England  following 
his  steps,  he  came  to  mingle  in  the  classic  celebra- 
tion of  the  most  venerable  university  of  that  republic 
which  he  had  contributed  to  create. 

The  church  where  the  Society  and  auditors  as- 
sembled was  not  crowded,  it  was  packed ;  through 
many  sunny  and  weary  hours  eager  men  remained 
perched  on  little  abutments  of  pillars  or  on  the  sharp 
edges  of  the  old-fashioned  square  pews.  Everett's 
renown  as  a  man  of  letters  was  already  established ; 
his  fame  as  a  speaker  of  letters  had  yet  to  be  made. 

As  the  old  man  of  war  and  the  young  man  el- 
oquent appeared  on  the  broad  stage,  surrounded 
with  the  distinguished  guests,  eminent  in  every  art 
and  field  of  lettered  fame,  the  vast  multitude  sent 


EDWARD    EVERETT.  267 

up  a  shout  that  might  have  rent  the  sky.  Then  was 
heard  for  the  first  time,  by  a  great,  promiscuous  audi- 
ence, the  strains  of  that  eloquence,  —  the  most  clas- 
sical, the  most  scholarly,  and  every  way  exquisite  to 
which  the  academic  groves  of  that  seat  of  learning 
had  ever  echoed  from  the  day  of  its  original  char- 
ter. The  theme  was  the  vindication  of  the  favor- 
able relation  to  letters  of  republican  institutions ; 
and  there  was  given,  in  one  branch  of  art  at  least, 
the  best  evidence  of  republican  fertility  and  perfec- 
tion. At  the  age  of  thirty,  Edward  Everett  stepped 
down  from  that  stage,  with  a  reputation  as  an  orator 
established  beyond  all  cavil. 

How  impressive  the  contrast  between  these  scenes; 
the  one  at  the  dawn,  the  other  at  the  evening  of  his 
course  ;  the  one  inspired  by  the  living  form  of  a  for- 
eign benefactor  standing  before  men's  eyes,  gazing 
upon  the  cities  of  the  people  he  had  blessed ;  the 
other  inspired  by  the  coffined  form  of  an  intellectual 
hero,  native  to  the  soil,  upon  whose  urn  the  eyes  of 
all  mankind  were  turned !  "  All  hail  to  Lafayette  ! " 
"  Farewell  to  Webster !  "  were  among  the  first  and 
the  last  strains  of  his  public  voice.  And  as  now 
the  orator  of  those  days  is  moving  among  the  peo- 
ple with  the  memory  of  the  great  friend  of  Lafayette 
in  his  keeping,  we  seem  to  hear  him  saying,  as  a 
closing  chorus  to  the  memory  of  his  own  rare  gen- 
ius among  men,  "  Hail  and  Farewell,  my  Country- 
men ! " 

It  is  peculiarly  appropriate,  then,  now  to  discuss 
the  ^lories  and  the  elements  of  his  elonuence. 


268  THE   PLATFORM. 

The  man  who  spoke  on  those  days  is  by  no 
means  of  the  class  which  we  have  called  natural 
orators,  —  speaking  from,  the  insatiable  necessity  of 
his  nature,  with  oratoric  energies  and  combative 
passions  which  alone  would  hurl  him  into  the  fo- 
rensic arena,  and  give  him  to  conquer  by  his  native 
character  and  ardor  as  well  as  by  his  intellect;  he 
was  and  is  the  Rhetorician  ;  and,  whether  we  consid- 
er the  exquisite  grace  and  finish  and  study  of  his 
manner  or  the  elaborate  art  of  his  matter  of  -compo- 
sition, he  is  to  be  ranked  as  the  first  Rhetorician 
of  America. 

The  subjects  and  occasions  of  the  bulk  of  his 
speeches  will  partly  give  us  the  key  to  his  eloquence  ; 
and  a  glance  at  the  manifest  outside  features  of  his 
speaking;  followed  by  a  little  closer  survey  of  two 
or  three  of  the  most  important  particulars,  will  lead 
us  through  this  attempt  at  a  just  view  of  the  orator. 

These  subjects  are  not  those  of  energetic  hand  to 
hand  encounter;  they  are,  as  any  one  will  see  by 
glancing  through  the  volumes  of  his  published  works, 
literary  addresses  to  college  and  academic  audiences, 
anniversary  speeches  celebrating  the  memorable  days 
of  "battle  of  the  country,  Fourth  of  July  orations, 
eulogiums  on  patriots,  as  Adams,  Jefferson,  Lafay- 
ette, and  Adams  the  younger,  Lyceum  lectures,  fes- 
tival, agricultural,  scientific,  educational,  and  temper- 
ance speeches,  &c.  From  these  subjects  and  occa- 
sions, it  is  plain  that  his  eloquence  is  not  that  of  the 
senatorial  debater,  or  the  forensic  athlete ;  nor,  speak- 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  269 

ing  generally  of  it  at  the  outset,  shall  we  say  it  is 
didactic  and  authoritative,  like  the  discourse  of  the 
apostle  of  the  ministry ;  but  we  would  call  it  pic- 
turesquely descriptive  and  animatedly  hortatory;  it 
describes  and  it  exhorts  ;  it  does  not  severely  argue, 
it  warmly  appeals  ;  it  does  not  command  and  threat- 
en, it  invites  and  attracts.  If  a  man  were  to  speak 
in  the  style  of  this  oratory  to  a  jury,  on  the  coarse 
topics  of  the  issue  at  bar,  he  would  have  about  as 
much  practical  effect  on  the  verdict,  we  think,  as  if 
he  stood  up  before  the  bar  and  fiddled  to  the  twelve 
men  with  much  tranquillity ;  but  let  him  stand  out 
at  full  length  upon  the  platform,  and  fling  the  serene 
images  of  his  beautiful  genius  like  rainbows  on  the 
air,  before  the  upturned  faces  of  the  thousands,  and 
he  would  "  get  a  verdict "  with  one  voice  from  all. 

He  is  then  to  be  considered  generally  as  a  Plat- 
form speaker,  but  not  of  the  contentious  order  nor 
flaming  with  passionate  intensity.  He  is  exhibitory 
rather  than  argumentative,  attracting  the  assent  of 
our  minds  by  allaying  the  hostilities  of  adverse  views, 
and  then  with  charming  adroitness  presenting  his 
own  ;  while  all  the  while  he  cheers  and  gratifies  the 
senses  of  his  hearer,  which  after  all  have  so  much  to 
do  with  the  mind's  decision,  and  at  last  charms  him 
into  acquiescence  with  his  ideas.  An  orator  may 
be  classified  from  the  marked  characteristic  of  his 
best  moments  in  oratory.  Everett's  climaxes  of  im- 
pressive power,  those  moments  when  he  touches  the 
topmost  round  of  elevation  of  himself  and  of  his 
23* 


270  THE  PLATFORM. 

audience,  are  almost  invariably  moments  either  of 
pathetic  exhortation  or  of  picturesque  description. 

Such  picturesque  description,  for  example,  as  his 
delineation  of  historic  scenes;  or  such  a  glowing 
sketch  as  he  drew  of  Daniel  Webster,  as  he  was  on 
the  evening  before  the  great  speech  of  his  life.  This 
sketch  was  given  at  the  supper  held  at  the  Revere 
House  in  Boston  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1856, 
by  the  friends  of  Webster  in  honor  of  his  memory. 
Everett  presided  and  made  the  main  speech.  Rufus 
Choate  had  also  been  expected  ;  had  he  also  spoken 
then  on  the  same  high  theme,  it  would  have  been 
indeed  to  those  who  loved  Caesar  dead  as  well  as 
living,  an  Arabian  Night's  entertainment.  Choate, 
however,  was  kept  away  by  sickness.  But  the 
speech  of  the  chairman,  for  this  quality  of  describing 
in  a  picturesque  manner  the  traits  and  scenes  of  the 
hero's  greatness,  was  matchless ;  and  we  take  from 
it  an  extract,  as  illustrating  the  general  character  of 
his  own  oratory,  and  also  as  exhibiting  the  feelings  of 
another  great  orator,  on  the  eve  of  his  most  terrible 
danger  and  most  triumphant  victory,  —  the  eve  of 
his  Waterloo.  "  I  saw  Mr.  Webster  on  the  evening 
before  he  replied  to  Hayne,  in  the  great  debate.  So 
calm  and  unimpassioned  was  he,  so  entirely  at  ease 
and*  free  from  that  nervous  excitement  which  is  al- 
most unavoidable,  so  near  the  moment  which  is  to 
put  the  whole  man  to  the  proof,  that  I  was  tempted, 
absurdly  enough,  to  think  him  not  sufficiently  aware 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  occasion.  I  ventured  even 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  271 

to  intimate  to  him,  that  what  he  was  to  say  the  next 
day  would  in  a  fortnight's  time  be  read  by  every 
grown  man  in  the  country.  But  I  soon  perceived 
that  his  calmness  was  the  repose  of  conscious  power. 
The  battle  had  been  fought  and  won  within,  upon 
the  broad  field  of  his  own  capacious  mind ;  for  it 
was  Mr.  Webster's  habit  first  to  state  to  himself  his 
opponent's  argument  in  its  utmost  strength.  Hence 
it  came  to  pass  he  was*  never  taken  by  surprise  by 
any  turn  of  the  discussion.  Besides,  the  moment 
and  the  occasion  were  too  important  for  trepidation. 
A  surgeon  might  as  well  be  nervous  who  is  going 
to  cut  within  a  hair's-breadth  of  a  great  artery.  He 
was  not  only  at  ease,  but  sportive  and  full  of  anec- 
dote ;  and,  as  he  told  the  Senate  playfully  the  next 
day,  he  slept  soundly  that  night  on  the  formidable 
assault  of  his  accomplished  adversary.  So  slept  the 
great  Conde  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Rocroi;  so 
Alexander  the  Great  slept  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of 
Arbela ;  and  so  they  awoke  to  deeds  of  immortal 
fame.  As  I  saw  him  in  the  evening,  (if  I  may  bor- 
row an  illustration  from  his  favorite  amusement,)  he 
was  as  unconcerned,  and  as  free  of  spirit,  as  some 
here  present  have  often  seen  him,  while  floating  in 
his  fishing-boat  along  a  hazy  shore,  gently  rocking 
on  the  tranquil  tide,  dropping  his  line  here  and  there, 
with  the  varying  fortune  of  the  sport.  The  next 
morning,  he  was  like  some  mighty  admiral,  dark 
and  terrible,  casting  the  long  shadow  of  his  frown- 
ing tiers  far  over  the  sea,  that  seemed  to  sink-  be- 


272  THE  PLATFORM. 

neath  him ;  '  Union '  and  pennant  streaming  from 
the  topmast  heads,  and  bearing  down  like  a  tempest 
upon  his  antagonist,  with  all  his  canvas  strained  to 
the  wind  and  all  his  thunders  roaring  from  his  broad- 
sides." As  Everett  pealed  out  the  full  volume  of 
his  voice,  upon  his  comparison  of  the  "  mighty  ad- 
miral," the  enthusiasm  of  the  gentlemen  present 
knew  no  bounds ;  he  himself  was  kindled  by  their 
ardor  into  unwonted  ecstacy ;  and,  as  he  spoke  of 
the  Union  pennant  streaming  from  the  masthead, 
he  caught  up  from  the  table,  as  if  unconsciously,  an 
ornamental  flag  of  the  Union,  and  waved  it  excited- 
ly, in  concert  with  his  jubilant  utterance. 

It  is  in  such  thought  as  this  that  he  seems  to 
feel  himself  most  freely  the  ecstasy  of  speaking,  and 
therefore  imparts  a  corresponding  sympathy  to  his 
hearers  ;  it  is  at  such  moments  that  the  Sybil  spirit 
within  him  is  conscious  of  the  spell  of  Apollo  de- 
scending over  it  with  the  life-giving  enthusiasm ; 
and  then  Edward  Everett  is  in  full  force,  —  then  the 
people  see  in  the  all-beaming  look  and  action,  and 
hear  in  the  clear,  clarion  music  of  the  tone,  that 
orator  whose  eloquence  stands  so  singularly  alone  in 
our  country,  —  superior  to  many,  inferior  to  none, 
but  all  alone,  —  no  other  oratorio  music  like  it,  — 
itself  the  product  of  no  school. 

The  prominent  qualities  of  his  speaking,  which 
strike  a  casual  hearer,  are  its  external  ones;  the 
gracefulness  of  his  action  and  appearance,  the  grace- 
fulness and  measured  harmony  of  his  tones,  liquid 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  273 

as  the  notes  of  a  canary,  but  robust  and  solid  as  the 
ring  of  a  trumpet. 

As  he  comes  forward  on  the  stage,  he  has  the  look 
of  a  thoroughbred  gentleman ;  he  takes  his  position 
easily  but  firmly  on  the  floor,  standing  still ;  self-pos- 
sessed and  appearing  to  know  exactly  what  to  do 
with  himself  and  with  his  arms  and  legs.  He  com- 
mences in  a  most  quiet  manner,  like  elegant  or  well- 
bred  conversation  in  a  large  drawing-room ;  as  he 
advances,  his  arm  comes  out  and  his  open  palm  ap- 
peals ;  soon  his  shut  hand  and  pointing  finger  moves 
up  and  down  a  little ;  and,  rising  in  mood,  his  tightly 
closed  hand  or  both  arms  uplifted  tell  of  the  spirit 
brightening  up  within  him ;  at  last  the  movements 
of  the  arms  and  the  easy  swing  of  the  form  blend 
quickly  into  each  other,  and  all  separate  noticeable 
gesture  is  lost  in  one  general  appearance  of  life  and 
brightness  and  movement;  but  through  the  whole 
he  stands  comparatively  still.  The  base  and  pedi- 
ment of  the  statue  is  firm,  the  superior  parts  swing 
and  play,  but  on  a  fixed  pivot ;  and  this  steadfast- 
ness mainly  produces  the  appearance  of  self-com- 
mand and  dignity,  which  he  never  for  a  moment 
loses  sight  of.  And  all  the  gesture  and  the  play  of 
form  is  of  the  utmost  grace.  Single  impulsive  ges- 
tures may  sometimes  seem  a  little  angular  or  verti- 
cal, under  a  strong  impulse  of  vigor,  but  as  a  whole 
the  action  is  eminently  graceful.  In  lofty  passages 
of  animated  zeal  he  does  move  about  somewhat,  but 
his  steps  as  he  does  so  would  not  dishonor  a  post- 


274  THE  PLATFORM. 

urer  ;  and  the  orbit  of  the  circle  within  which  his 
whole  figure  moves  is  quite  confined.  He  never 
tears  about  or  rushes  in  oratorio  frenzy  to  the  foot- 
lights ;  he  often  shows  great  momentary  energy  in 
action ;  but  it  is  displayed  in  postures  and  attitudes 
and  movements  in  which  statues  might  be  mould- 
ed, and  on  which  the  tableaux  curtain  might  appro- 
priately rise.  He  is  in  "  action  "  upon  the  oratorio 
stage,  what  John  Kemble  was  upon  the  dramatic 
stage,  —  a  perfect  artist.  It  is  quite  a  coincidence, 
that  in  our  oratory  there  has  been  a  succession  of 
leading  men,  who  typify  the  same  successive  schools 
of  manner  as  were  exhibited  on  the  English  stage 
by  Garrick,  John  Kemble,  and  Edmund  Kean ;  and 
on  the  French  stage  by  Baron,  Lekain,  and  Talma. 
For  Henry  Clay  had,  by  nature,  much  of  Garrick's 
style  of  effect ;  Everett  follows  Kemble ;  and  Choate 
is  of  the  passionate  order  of  Edmund  Kean  ;  and 
the  three  orators  succeed  each  other  in  their  seniority 
of  years,  in  the  same  order  as  the  three  actors  do. 

His  expression  of  face,  when  he  looks  quietly  at 
his  audience,  is  that  of  repose,  and  rather  of  resigna- 
tion ;  the  seams  of  sorrow  are  carved  there  appar- 
ently in  deep  imprint,  and  the  look  is  rather  border- 
ing on  distress ;  but  hardly  has  he  got  fairly  started 
in  his  effort,  when  the  cloud  lifts  from  his  counte- 
nance, genial  emotions,  peacefully  hearty  impulses 
and  sympathetic  looks  glide  over  his  features  ;  and, 
as  he  mounts  into  real  rapture  of  emotion,  the  looks 
kindle,  the  classic  brow,  square  and  high,  seems  to 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  275 

shine,  and,  he  smiles,  —  and  such  a  smile !  —  enough 
to  say  it  is  the  sweetest  and  most  winning,  the  most 
warm  and  womanly  smile  we  have  ever  seen  played 
off'  as  an  instrument  of  effect,  upon  the  oratorio  or 
even  the  dramatic  face  of  man.  We  do  not  wonder 
that  in  his  youth,  when  he  was  only  nineteen  years 
old,  he  was  able  to  preach  in  that  venerable  old 
church,  which  still  echoed  with  the  affecting  accents 
of  Buckminster's  spiritual  fervor,  to  congregations 
thronging  the  house  and  standing  up  and  almost 
hanging  to  the  gallery  pillars  to  catch  a  view  of  him. 
As  then,  he  was  wont  to  rise  in  his  polished  passages 
to  his  full  exhibition,  and  stretch  out  his  hands  to  his 
hearers,  his  eye  not  flashing  but  beaming,  his  classi- 
cal head  thrown  back,  his  whole  port  speaking  like 
beseeching  Beauty  itself,  by  turns  deprecating,  de- 
lighting, and  almost  demanding  applause,  and  the 

whole  effect  crowned  by  that  marvellous  smile, he 

took,  even  at  that  boyish  period,  the  palm  of  pulpit 
action. 

And  then  the  tones  of  his  voice  are  flute-like, 

they  are  not  remarkable  for  power ;  they  could  not 
roar  down  a  mob,  nor  deafen  with  the  shrieks  of 
spurious  excitement ;  but  they  very  well  illustrate  the 
rule,  that  musical  tones  will  go  farther  than  much 
louder  tones  harsh  or  unmusical.  We  have  heard 
him  in  the  multitude  at  Faneuil  Hall,  and  in  the 
vast  height  and  ample  area  of  the  Music  Hall  in 
Boston  ;  yet  we  heard  him,  and  men  in  every  part 
of  that  great  space  heard  him,  distinctly.  There  is  a 


276  THE   PLATFORM. 

clear  richness  and  rounded  fulness  of  tone  which 
rolls  into  the  ear,  without  effort  or  bluster  in  the 
speaker ;  and  you  almost  wonder  you  did  hear,  it  is 
so  quiet  and  easy.  Partly  also  this  result  is  attribut- 
able to  the  accuracy  of  his  enunciation  ;  the  words 
are  sent  forth  rounded  and  finished,  the  syllables 
clearly  defined,  the  emphatic  syllable  or  word  raised 
in  relief,  the  whole  sentence  struck  out  like  the  laurel 
on  the  conqueror's  brow  which  is  stamped  on  a 
country's  coin. 

The  quality  of  the  tones  is  not  deep  and  sonorous, 
nor  on  the  other  hand  is  it  high  and  metallic.  It 
lies  between,  and  partakes  the  excellence  of  each 
vocal  level.  For  on  the  ordinary  plane  of  utterance 
he  speaks,  we  should  judge,  in  what  might  be  called 
a  sweet  tenor  key,  but  in  the  cadence  of  the  sen- 
tences- he  drops  into  a  deeper  variation,  which  might 
be  called  a  fair  barytone ;  and  this  change  is  very 
agreeable  to  the  ear,  for  although  a  tenor  voice  is 
clear,  it  is  apt  to  tire,  unless  alternated  with  deeper, 
fuller,  and  more  of  base  tones.  And  on  all  his  more 
solemn  and  impressive  thoughts,  this  moderately 
deep,  full  quality  of  tone  plants  in  our  minds  the 
proper  accompanying  suggestions ;  just  as  the  chant 
of  the  Miserere  announces  its  laments  to  a  man 
who  cannot  see  the  candles  go  out  and  cannot  un- 
derstand a  word  that  is  sung.  And  on  ordinary 
thoughts,  too,  single  words  are  sometimes  given 
with  such  beautiful  clearness — quite  indescribable 
—  but  such,  nevertheless,  that  they  glide  into  the 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  277 

mind  of  themselves,  and  take  full  possession  unques- 
tioned. 

The  rhetoricians  of  antiquity  practised  their  speak- 
ing with  an  assistant  musician  standing  behind 
them,  to  touch  the  successive  key-notes  of  their 
paragraphs,  on  an  ivory  flute.  Mr.  Everett's  perfec- 
tion would  almost  indicate  a  corresponding  musical 
culture.  In  listening  to  him,  we  realize  something 
of  the  possible  justice  of  Cicero's  criticism  upon  one 
of  his  contemporaries :  "  The  speech  of  this  divine 
person  was  like  the  Swan."  And  we  can  also  gain 
a  faint  comprehension  of  the  possible  execution  of 
oratory  to  which  those  first  masters  of  the  art  must 
have  attained,  when  they  thought  it  necessary  some- 
times to  have  no  less  than  three  teachers  for  disci- 
plining various  tones  of  their  voice. 

But  it  is  by  no  means  Everett's  mere  quality  of 
voice,  clear  and  sweet  and  swelling  as  it  is,  which 
produces  that  complete  effect  of  music  and  pleasur- 
able sensation  which  his  auditors  are  taken  by ;  for 
that  element  which  elocutionists  denominate  "  Time  " 
is  completely  understood  by  him,  and  chiefly  con- 
tributes to  this  end.  His  ordinary  time  or  rate  of 
utterance  is  easy,  quickening  occasionally  into  de- 
cided celerity,  yet  never  impetuous  or  headlong ; 
never,  even  in  the  most  rapid  climax,  so  quick  that 
he  could  not  bite  his  lip  between  each  member  of  it. 
But  that  easy  movement  of  time  is  rescued  from 
monotony  and  made  most  attractive,  by  a  regular 
recurrence  of  little  breaks  of  sound  or  pauses,  and 
24 


278  THE  PLATFORM. 

by  cadences  which  make  up  and  produce  the  rhythm 
of  this  spoken  song ;  for  all  really  eloquent  utterance 
is,  after  all,  a  close  approach  to  a  chant  or  song,  as 
eloquent  thought  comes  close  upon  poetry ;  and  the 
harp  might  be  struck  and  the  lyre  touched  to  many 
a  moving  burst  of  his  upon  the  Platform,  in  quite  as 
full  accord  as  with  many  a  declamatory  solo  on  the 
operatic  stage. 

This  rhythmic  quality  of  speaking,  produced  by 
a  regular  rate  of  utterance  and  regularly  recurring 
cadences,  pauses,  and  interruptions  of  sound,  is  in- 
deed carried  in  his  case  to  an  extent  very  percepti- 
ble ;  and  sometimes  perhaps  too  much  so.  Neces- 
sary to  all  good  speaking  it  undoubtedly  is,  in  a 
certain  degree  ;  and  many  celebrated  speakers  use  it 
unconsciously,  without  familiarizing  themselves  with 
its  principles ;  but  its  true  limit  unquestionably  is 
reached,  when  it  produces  the  effect  of  a  grateful 
musical  flowing  of  sound,  without  being  itself  so 
decided  as  to  be  directly  conscious  to  the  hearer. 
He  should  never  be  allowed  to  feel  that  an  actual 
tune  is  being  played,  or  be  able  to  see  how  the  effect 
he  delights  to  experience  is  produced.  The  moment 
the  quality  of  music  in  speech  is  made  so  prominent 
as  to  be  distinctly  noticed,  that  moment  rhythm 
merges  into  melody,  and  it  begins  to  cloy.  The 
service  for  the  intellectual  palate,  like  the  dishes  for 
the  physical  palate,  must  be  only  seasoned,  not 
sugar-candied.  And  herein  lurks  the  art  of  the  ac- 
complished speaker,  to  keep  his  rhythmical  flow  of 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  279 

sound  decided  as  to  one  generally  predominant  air, 
but  varying  for  ever  with  the  changes  of  his  own 
mood  and  mind,  with  the  theme,  and  the  audience  ; 
countless  variations  of  tune,  but  all  subordinate  to 
one  general  harmonious  march,  —  the  little  tunes,  so 
to  speak,  subordinate  to  one  grand  dominant  tune, — 
many  like  the  billows,  one  like  the  sea. 

This  was  that  concealed  but  charming  "  Rhythmus  " 
of  which  the  ancient  schools  were  so  enamored ;  this 
it  was  which  shed  the  last  charm  upon  the  spoken 
composition  of  Cicero,  so  exquisite  yet  so  oratoric. 
"  Did  you  not  see,"  said  Cotta,  in  the  famous  Dia- 
logue on  Oratory,  "  with  what  a  curious  cunning  our 
friend  Hortensius  wove  in  his  periods ;  in  truth,  pro- 
ducing almost  a  divine  eloquence  ?  "  Indeed,  this 
great  arm  of  oratorial  efficiency  is  so  difficult  to 
master  or  to  teach,  that  some  modern  schools  rec- 
ommend the  learner  to  study  closely  and  follow  blind- 
ly the  pattern  of  some  distinguished  speaker, —  a 
poor  substitute  for  the  teaching  of  nature. 

This  element  of  effect  Everett  employs  to  such  a 
degree,  that  from  the  "  Ladies  and  Gentlemen " 
with  which  he  opens,  to  the  last  word  before  he 
makes  his  bow,  you  could  almost  beat  time  accu- 
rately to  the  whole  speech.  And  we  have  some- 
times seen  his  hand  involuntarily  following  his  de- 
livery, actually  going  up  and  down  in  a  quiet  way, 
with  a  motion  which  was  a  perfect  time-beat  to  his 
tongue  ;  —  no  leader  of  orchestral  concerts  would 
have  kept  time  with  his  baton  more  certainly.  We 


280  THE   PLATFORM. 

never  heard  in  this  country  any  one  pretending  to 
be  a  speaker,  whose  rhythm  was  so  sustained  and 
obvious  as  his,  save  the  brilliant  Attorney-General 
of  New  York,  Ogden  Hoffman  and  his  dulcet  har- 
monies of  tone  ;  even  yet  are  ringing  in  our  ear  like 
sweet  bells  ;  chiming  in  long  vibration,  and  dying 
in  delicious  cadences.  Southern  speakers  indicate 
a  good  deal  of  effort  after  this  quality,  but  with 
few  exceptions  (such  as  William  C.  Preston,  whom 
we  heard  only  in  the  Senate,)  it  is  apt  to  degener- 
ate with  them  into  a  mere  sing-song,  and  nature 
never  teaches  sing-song  when  she  dictates  music ; 
the  wind-harps  of  the  trees  play  harmoniously,  but 
variously. 

Rather  over-pronounced  as  this  quality  is  in 
Everett,  however,  he  never  carries  it  so^far  as  actu- 
ally to  repel  and  sicken  the  ear ;  though  occasionally, 
we  must  admit,  he  pauses  just  on  the  hither  side  of 
a  break-up  of  all  the  fascination  of  his  movement. 
In  general,  he  is  quite  deliberate  in  his  flow  of  tone, 
every  sentence  sinking  and  rising  again  with  easy 
slope  and  mild  gradation, — the  tranquil  undulations 
of  a  summer  sea ;  yet  again  the  movement  changes 
as  stirring  thoughts  seize  him,  —  the  sound  comes 
quicker  and  louder,  and  (if  we  continue  the  parallel) 
the  rippling  waves  rise  higher  and  shorter  on  the 
summer  level  of  that  placid  plane  of  speech ;  and 
like  the  lake  across  whose  surface  rushes  the  moun- 
tain squall,  we  see  there,  for  an  interval,  great  agita- 
tion, foam,  and  rush ;  but  shortly,  out  comes  the 


EDWARD    EVERETT.  281 

sun  of  smiles,  and  all  again  is  calm, — the  movement 
only  rippling  onward  to  the  farther  shore. 

Such  is  his  rate  of  utterance  when  composed,  and 
when  stirred  up ;  aptly  imaged  by  the  summer-gliding 
sea  vexed  by  stray  winds  and  hill-side  blasts, — 
never  the  ocean,  surging  in  chasms,  swelling  in 
mountains,  hiding  the  stars. 

Indeed,  his  whole  action,  gesture  of  arms,  hands, 
and  body,  and  entire  vocality-time  and  tone,  is  under 
the  most  adroit  management.  He  never  lets  im- 
petuosity or  transport,  in  any  branch  of  it,  hurry  him 
beyond  the  height  of  a  gracefully  forcible  level ;  and 
in  coming  up  to  the  leading  image  or  commanding 
idea,  he  takes  care  that  the  surrounding  thoughts,  as 
far  as  regards  their  vocal  expression,  shall  be  de- 
pressed appropriately  for  the  just  impressiveness  of 
that.  No  scattering  discharges  of  powder  break  the 
concentrate  force  of  his  whole  artillery  of  action, 
striking  on  the  central  sentiment. 

We  have  spoken  first  and  fully  of  these  external 
traits  of  his  oratory  —  his  address  and  gesture,  his 
voice,  tones,  and  musical  rate  of  utterance  —  because 
these  qualities  are  what  strike  the  casual  hearer  of 
Everett  most  forcibly.  We  do  not  by  any  means 
describe  them  as  the  substantial  support  of  his 
power,  but  as  great  elements  of  it;  and  such  as 
chiefly  attract  to  him  the  unreflective  attention. 

The  prominent  and  arresting  qualities  of  oratory 
vary  widely  in  different  men.  In  Daniel  Webster, 
the  great  oratoric  element  which  first  struck  the 
24* 


282  THE   PLATFORM. 

audience,  was  his  unequalled  presence.  "  If  the 
king  of  the  gods  spoke  Greek,"  said  the  pagan  eu- 
logist, "  he  would  speak  it  like  Plato  "  ;  had  Web- 
ster been  then  on  earth,  he  might  have  added,  "  If 
the  Father-God  come  down,  he  will  look  like  him." 
As  Webster  stood  before  the  people,  long  before 
he  opened  his  mouth,  he  had  already  commanded 
homage,  and  won  half  his  battle.  In  Henry  Clay, 
it  was  not  majestic  presence  nor  rhythmical  utter- 
ance which  first  riveted  the  wandering  ear,  but  the 
absolute  richness  and  compass  of  his  voice  and  his 
chivalric  gallantry  of  demeanor.  In  the  pulpit  ora- 
tors Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  Edwin  H.  Chapin  it 
is  primarily  the  rush  of  their  thoughts.  In  Fisher 
Ames,  it  was  the  pathetic  tenderness  of  his  appeal. 
In  Everett,  it  is  the  grace  and  polish  of  his  address 
and  delivery,  and  the  elaborate  finish  and  beauty  of 
his  composition. 

Nor,  in  now  undertaking  to  describe,  with  some 
attempt  at  fulness  though  ever  so  imperfectly,  his 
rhetoric  of  matter,  as  we  have  treated  his  manner, 
do  we  mean  to  be  understood  as  implying  that 
more  praise  is  justly  due  to  his  exquisite  composi- 
tion than  to  the  solid  ideas  which  it  enshrines ;  but 
that  the  dress  of  the  thought  is  so  prettily  got  up, 
the  woven  and  dyed  fabric  of  the  staple  is  so  bright, 
that  the  public  eye  is  most  caught  and  rests  most 
upon  the  outside.  We  have  far  too  unfeigned  an 
admiration  for  his  mind,  we  know  too  well  its  learn- 
ing, its  prodigious  readiness  yet  retentiveness,  its 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  283 

uncommon  severity  of  attention,  and  force  in  appli- 
cation of  thought,  to  be  led  away  from  his  ideas  by 
his  words.  But  it  is  the  impression  given  to  an 
observer  who  knows  nothing  but  the  orator  to  whom 
for  the  first  time  he  finds  himself  listening,  that  we 
at  this  point  aim  to  describe.  On  him,  the  solidity 
of  Everett's  mind  is  not  impressive,  except  indirect- 
ly and  ultimately ;  —  indirectly,  by  the  impression  the 
solid  weight  of  thought  makes  unconsciously  through 
his  pleased  senses ;  and  ultimately,  when  he  comes 
if  he  ever  comes,  to  study  the  oration  in  print. 
And  as  we  found  it  necessary  to  dwell  on  the  ex- 
ternal qualities  of  the  physical  part  of  his  oratory, 
we  must  in  the  same  way  speak  now  of  the  exter- 
nal qualities  of  the  intellectual  part  of  his  oratory,  — 
the  composition. 

And  here  it  must  be  observed,  that  greatly  as  all 
these  externals  of  which  we  have  spoken  conspire  to 
produce  the  final  victorious  effect,  they  could  by  no 
means  achieve  it  without  a  corresponding  precision 
and  polish  of  the  style.  For  let  any  one,  who  sup- 
poses that  this  fine  external  is  independent  of  the 
substance  it  purports  to  express,  endeavor  to  utter 
common  stuff'  of  composition,  (a  hasty  editorial  of 
a  poor  paper  for  instance,)  mimicking  the  rate  of 
movement  and  genial  cadence  of  Everett,  and  he 
will  find  out  that  a  style  of  delivery  like  that  is  sup- 
ported only  by  a  corresponding  style  of  matter. 

And  when  we  turn  our  study  to  this  very  style  of 
Everett,  we  perceive  that  it  has  been  brought  to  such 


284  THE   PLATFORM. 

perfection  by  him,  that  it  has  certain  taking  ele- 
ments, independent  and  outside  of  its  intellectual 
relation  of  words  to  ideas.  What  we  mean  is  this, 
the  words  themselves  are  words  which  it  is  good  to 
hear ;  they  are  not  harsh  nor  uncouth ;  they  do  not 
bristle  with  consonants  like  the  four  sneezes  of  a 
Russian  name  of  note ;  they  glide  with  labial  sounds 
and  vowel  notes.  A  foreigner,  ignorant  of  English, 
would  see  in  hearing  him  how  rich  was  our  luxuri- 
ant and  variously  compounded  mother-tongue  in 
agreeable  words ;  clear,  ringing,  rounded  in  their 
natural  sound.  In  the  arrangement  of  these  well- 
chosen  words,  the  small-arms  of  oratory,  he  is  equal- 
ly happy.  No  long,  lumbering,  involved,  and  inex- 
tricable labyrinths  of  sentences  lead  the  voice,  of  ne- 
cessity, to  inelegant  straining  and  inaudible  screech- 
ing or  monotonous  sameness  of  tone;  but  in  the 
mere  inevitable  sequence  and  interruption  of  sound, 
the  voice  following  obediently,  moves  with  a  similar 
facility  and  smoothness.  Bat  suppose  the  same  per- 
son reads  aloud  one  of  Lord  Brougham's  cumbrous 
sentences  —  a  solid  page  of  rough  barbaric  beauty 
—  and  savage  music,  if  any,  only  will  be  heard. 
He  will  then  see,  how  skilfully  Everett's  sentences 
are  contrived  with  reference  to  how  they  shall  sound, 
as  well  as  to  what  they  shall  signify ;  they  are  short, 
put  together  with  precise  articulation,  and  divided 
off  in  well-proportioned  paragraphs  and  chapters. 

But  we  must  come  nearer  the  heart  of  his  dis- 
course, and  try  to  trace  out  the  intellectual  element 


EDWARD    EVERETT.  285 

in  the  coloring,  the  fibre,  and  the  mass  of  his  matter. 
And  coming  to  that,  we  shall  be  led  to  look  more 
narrowly  upon  his  mind  in  its  strictly  intellectual 
frame  ;  for  although  all  the  "  action  "  which  we  have 
described  is  of  course  of  mental  origin,  dictated  by 
the  mind  which  reigns  over  the  whole  man,  in  every 
movement  or  sound,  yet  this  portion  depends  more 
upon  the  capital  forces  and  energies  of  the  mind; 
the  other  portion,  resting  rather  on  the  superficial 
powers  of  the  mind  in  conjunction  with  the  senses ; 
and  this  portion  is  after  all,  although  vastly  condu- 
cive to  oratoric  effect,  by  no  means  indicative  of  a 
strength  of  mental  machinery  at  all  commensurate 
with  its  great  hold  on  the  popular  ear.  Doubtless 
the  power  to  shine  in  the  externals  of  oratory  is  in- 
dicative of  native  aptitude  for  speaking,  but  it  rather 
announces  genius  than  understanding;  it  does  not 
indicate  logical  faculty  or  philosophic  grasp  or  pro- 
found meditativeness ;  and  yet  reasoners  and  phi- 
losophers have  tried  with  oft-repeated  toils  to  train 
their  tongues  to  it,  that  thus  they  might  make  the 
imprint  of  their  superior  minds  on  the  people's  heart ; 
but  they  have  toiled  in  vain. 

And  now,  looking  upon  the  strictly  intellectual 
structure  of  his  spoken  productions,  we  see  most 
displayed,  and  always  and  in  every  part  displayed, 
the  element  of  Beauty.  There  is  in  the  diction  and 
the  thought,  in  the  fundamental  and  the  illustrative 
idea,  one  general  suffusion  of  beauty.  To  that  all 
other  qualities  in  his  composition  give  place.  But 


286  THE   PLATFORM. 

it  is  truly  a  chaste  and  tasteful  beauty;  no  loose 
luxuriance  of  tawdry  imagery,  no  glittering  baubles 
of  cheap  ornament ;  it  is  diamond  ware,  not  paste ; 
and  the  choice  coloring  of  a  first-class  artist,  not  the 
coarse  daubing  of  a  dashing  scene-painter.  It  is  a 
classic  beauty,  pervading  and  investing  everything 
like  an  atmosphere,  with  an  air  of  Attic  repose. 

The  Roman  rhetoricians  thought  that  a  copious 
and  diffusive  method,  pouring  along  with  somewhat 
irregular  force,  and  therefore  capable  of  the  influ- 
ence only  of  an  incomplete  and  glaring  beauty,  was 
on  the  whole  more  effective  with  the  assembly ;  and 
modern  experience  seems  to  confirm  this  view.  Ac- 
cordingly, Cicero  himself,  after  his  Eastern  travel, 
grew  much  more  abundant  and  Ionian  in  his  style. 
But  it  cannot  be  doubted,  that,  looked  at  as  an  ar- 
tistic work,  the  beauty  of  such  a  creation  as  Everett 
composes  is  of  far  higher  order.  Exquisite  enamel 
may  not  strike  a  mob  as  forcibly  as  the  coarse  drop- 
scene  of  the  theatre ;  but  the  decorators  of  theatres 
are  countless,  —  a  Titian  lives  alone  in  his  age.  And 
besides,  this  refined  beauty,  as  he  uses  it,  is  by  no 
means  ineffective  with  the  miscellaneous  people ;  he 
does  catch  and  hold  the  attention  of  the  promiscu- 
ous multitude ;  and  he  contrives  to  make  the  most 
delicate  shadings  and  soft  lights  visible  to  the  com- 
mon eye  ;  and  thus  he  makes  his  Speech,  although  so 
critically  correct,  as  popular  as  if  it  were  more  coarse 
and  striking. 

This  principle   of  beauty  governs   his  choice  of 


EDWARD   EVERETT.-  287 

words.  They  are  chosen,  we  should  infer,  firstly,  for 
their  harmonious  beauty,  and,  secondly,  for  their  in- 
trinsic strength.  If  words  are  weapons,  as  they  are 
often  called,  he  sometimes,  we  fear,  sacrifices  the 
temper  to  the  glitter  of  his  steel.  Yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  the  Damacus  blade  is  at  once  a  mirror  sur- 
face and  a  razor  edge,  and  cuts  the  silken  cushion 
or  the  sinner's  head  with  equal  facility  and  more 
cleaving  power,  so  oftentimes  he  combines  the  two, 
with  a  keen  energy  of  impression  such  as  mere 
strength  could  never  give.  We  have  already  de- 
scribed his  words  as  smooth-sounding.  To  this  let  us 
add,  that  they  are  in  their  own  nature,  so  to  speak, 
clear,  bright,  and  sweet ;  that  is,  in  the  conceptions 
linked  indissolubly  with  them,  independently  of  the 
idea  which  they  are  designedly  used  to  image  or  con- 
vey. Poetic  beauty  often  lurks  in  a  word  or  epithet 
as  well  as  in  a  more  formal  figure  of  speech.  Some 
men's  words  are  transparent  as  a  crystal  sheet  of 
water  through  which  you  see  the  white  pebbles 
plain  upon  its  floor ;  with  others  the  water  is  equally 
clear  and  the  pebbles  white,  but  the  slanting  rays  of 
their  sunny  fancy  silver  the  surface  and  paint  the 
floor.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to  separate  the  im- 
pression which  the  words  alone  make,  from  the 
impression  which  the  thoughts  expressed  by  them 
collectively  make.  People  often  call  them  the  dress 
of  thought,  but  they  are  in  fact  so  incorporated  with 
it,  that  they  should  rather  be  called  the  embodiment, 
or,  as  Coleridge  says,  the  incarnation  of  thought. 


288  .    THE  PLATFORM. 

And  the  analytic  critic  who  should ,  pursue  the  dis- 
crimination between  them  too  far,  would  be  entirely 
confused  in  his  criticism ;  the  flesh  of  a  body  cannot 
be  all  stripped  off,  without  the  flowing  of  the  life- 
blood  and  the  ruin  of  the  body.  Suffice  it  to  say 
then  of  his  words,  that  they  are  beautiful  because 
they  are  smooth,  clear,  and  plain  in  themselves,  and 
they  are  wedded  to  grateful  associations. 

In  the  construction  of  his  sentences  and  para- 
graphs also  Beauty  is  found.  The  ideas  are  dis- 
posed with  captivating  ingenuity.  The  several  sen- 
tences hold  just  enough  of  the  thought  to  graduate 
its  entrance  to  the  mind,  so  that  its  portal  shall 
never  be  either  crowded  or  confused ;  and  what 
thought  each  sentence  contains,  is  well  disposed. 
He  delights  in  what  the  teacher  of  rhetoric  calls  the 
close  or  periodic  sentence ;  where  the  capital  idea  is 
suspended  to  the  end,  till  all  the  qualifying  and  ex- 
planatory parts  are  disposed  of,  then  wholly  unen- 
cumbered to  be  sent  home  to  the  mind.  So  with  the 
fabrication  of  paragraphs  ;  the  successive  portions  of 
the  idea  and  the  approximating  thoughts  are  judi- 
ciously divided  and  graduated,  and  advance  upon  the 
receiving  mind  with  progressive  power ;  till  the  cli- 
max of  the  capital  idea  or  image  seizes  and  takes  firm 
hold  of  the  well-prepared  mind  of  the  fascinated  hear- 
er. There  is  no  jumbling  of  figures  in  his  framework, 
no  cross  lights  or  doubtful  tints ;  clear,  bright,  and 
beauteous,  and  fixed  for  ever  in  our  minds,  long  to  be 
remembered,  often  to  be  revived  for  us,  the  picture 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  289 

stands ;  realizing  ^.gain  and  again  the  universal  truth, 
"  a  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever." 

The  uncommon  clearness  in  hi.<?  words,  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  his  thoughts,  and  in  the  thoughts  them- 
selves, is  an  element  of  beauty  which,  although  it 
may  not  challenge  the  express  notice  of  a  hearer, 
contributes  much  more  than  he  is  usually  aware'  of 
to  the  entire  impression  left  upon  him. 

But  in  estimating  the  beauty  of  oratoric  compo- 
sition, its  chief  seat  must  of  course  be  sought  in 
the  metaphors  and  the  illustrations.  The  subject 
upon  which  a  speech  is  made  will  probably  be  de- 
termined by  outside  considerations ;  it  may  be  dull 
or  it  may  be  delightful ;  but  whether  it  is  or  no,  no 
man  can  call  himself  an  orator  who  cannot  make  it 
at  least  attractive,  if  not  spirit-stirring.  We  re- 
member to  have  heard  a  dazzling  declaimer  of  much 
celebrity  say,  that  a  genuine  orator  ought  to  be  able 
to  make  the  subject  of  "air-tight  stoves"  into  an 
oration  as  interesting  and  warming  as  they  were 
themselves.  Probably  in  most  speeches  the  leading 
idea  upon  which  the  whole  hung  could  be  crushed 
up  into  a  few  lines  of  heading,  like  the  marginal  note 
of  a  Law  Report ;  but  its  treatment  as  a  discourse 
gives  scope  to  the  whole  enginery  of  topics  which 
fancy  or  memory  can  summon  to  the  speaker's  aid. 
Some  great  rhetorical  speakers  among  us  seem  to 
wanton  in  the  plenitude  of  their  wealthy  minds,  and 
take  delight  in  deviating  from  and  finally  altogether 
deserting  their  theme ;  until  having  taken  their  star- 
25 


290  THE  PLATFORM. 

struck  follower  through  warmer  regions  of  fancy, 
they  lead  him  back  again  upon  the  main  road  of  the 
argument,  brisk  and  glowing  from  his  jaunt.     These, 
however,  are  few  in  number ;  for  in  truth  it  must  be 
allowed  that  there  are  few  great  rhetorical  speakers 
among  us :  the  learning  and  the  culture  of  fancy 
which  are  demanded  to  entitle  one  to  that  power 
and  that  repute  are  not  often  conceded  by  the  aspi- 
rant, in  our  utilitarian  age.     William  Pinkney,  by 
many  degrees  the  most  learnedly  brilliant  rhetori- 
cian (save  his  admiring  and  admirable  follower,  Ru- 
fus  Choate)  who  ever  spoke  in  America,  as  he  stood 
up  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in 
all  the  heat  of  his  full  and  fervid  and  fierce  nature, 
would  rush  about  the  ancient  mummy-cases  of  legal 
points,  and  lay  hands  on  and  dress  up  the  old  dry 
bones  as  for  some  tourney  or  feast-day,  such  was  the 
pomp  and  splendor  and  persistent  fluency  of  his  ex- 
haustless  illustration ;  and  Rufus  Choate,  our  fore- 
most rhetorical  advocate,  who  best  knows  of  all  men 
living  "  how  to  make  madness  beautiful,  and  to  throw 
o'er  erring  deeds  and  things  a  hue  of  words  like 
heaven,"  will  often  wind  his  thought  into  such  laby- 
rinthine corridors,  long  drawn  out  through  many  a 
lengthening  reach  and  sweep  of  metaphor,  analogy, 
and  contrast,  that  we  cannot  help  feeling  an  itching 
to  "  get  at  the  idea  " ;  we  are  impatient  to  see  what 
all  this  is  to  come  to,  when  he  gets  us  through  the 
ample  arabesqued  halls ;  we  want,  in  short,  just  to 
pop  right  into  the  back-door  upon  the  goal,  while 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  291 

the  procession  is  still  making  its  stately  way  on  the 
grand  staircase.  Still,  how  much  we  can  pardon  to 
an  affluent  fancy  for  a  wild  vagrancy  in  its  scenical 
pageants ! 

But  when  the  Fancy,  affluent  to  exuberance  and 
instantly  responsive  to  demand,  is  chastened  and 
clarified,  if  we  may  use  the  word ;  so  that  ornament 
and  illustration  play  freely,  but  in  complete  subordi- 
nation to  the  theme,  never  either  breaking  off  from 
it  or  clouding  it,  but  helping  it  on  all  the  time,  and 
throwing  around  it  the  halo  of  ideality,  then  is  seen 
the  best  beauty  of  the  rhetorical  art.  And  thus  it  is 
with  Everett.  He  is  the  Raphael  of  word-painters, 
as  Choate  and  Webster  have  their  somewhat  appro- 
priate parallels  in  Titian  and  Michael  Angelo.  Ti- 
tian, painting  with  profusion  of  rich,  high  colorings 
and  a  strong  sensuous  fancy,  presented  to  the  eye 
pictures  as  luxurious  as  those  which  Choate  presents 
to  the  mind,  in  the  gay  revel  of  his  riotous  imagina- 
tion ;  and  Webster's  massive  beauty  of  composition 
like  ornamented  granite,  calls  up  the  genius  of  Angelo 
—  at  once  architect  and  painter — planning  the  dome 
of  St.  Peters,  and  painting  the  "  Last  Judgment  of 
Man  "  on  the  walls  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.  But  the 
work  of  Everett  is  suffused  with  delicate  charms,  and 
tinged  with  the  most  fastidious  though  fervid  taste. 
His  description  of  Florence  Nightingale,  in  a  recent 
speech,  called  up  an  image  as  warm  and  sweet  as 
Raphael's  own  Madonna. 

The  resources  of  his  Fancy  are  inexhaustible.  Ev- 


292  THE   PLATFORM. 

ery  kingdom  of  nature,  every  province  of  art,  every 
branch  of  learning,  recondite  or  popular,  is  ransacked 
for  image,  allusion,  or  allegory ;  resemblances  the 
most  delicate  and  subtle,  yet  always  agreeable,  he 
will  light  upon  and  multiply  at  will,  yet  he  very 
rarely  wanders  out  of  sight  of  his  chief  topic ;  to 
that  he  is  constant,  and  keeps  comparatively  close ; 
nor,  whether  moving  far  or  near  in  respect  to  it,  does 
he  ever  cloud  it  with  a  confusion  of  loose  imagery, 
or  crush  it  under  a  profusion  of  fancies  of  any  kind. 
Never  does  he  let  the  rhetoric  strangle  the  subject. 
Sometimes,  to  be  sure,  he  finds  himself  at  a  con- 
siderable distance  from  the  theme,  but  he  keeps  the 
avenue  by  which  he  went  so  well  open  and  so 
straight,  that  the  vista  is  all  clear  and  bright  as  the 
track  of  a  sunbeam. 

Many  years  ago,  we  heard  him  in  a  speech  at  an 
agricultural  fair ;  and  as  he  was  alluding,  to  the  wor- 
thy farmers  and  guests  present,  to  the  natural  pro- 
ducts of  the  earth,  he  spoke  of  ice,  —  the  pond-product 
of  Middlesex  County  in  Massachusetts;  and  from 
that  slippery  basis  he  moved  on  by  the  most  grace- 
ful, natural,  and  obvious  steps  to  the  American  Em- 
bassy in  London ;  to  the  gay  throngs  of  a  royal  levee ; 
and  the  heated  shores  of  the  Hooghly  river,  laving  the 
walls  of  that  Fort  William  which  guards  the  Indian 
realm  of  England.  In  the  landscape,  framed  from 
the  extremest  extremes  of  "Wenham  ice  and  an  East 
Indian  fever,  we  remember  there  figured  in  harmoni- 
ous relation  an  American  Merchant,  a  Princess  of 


EDWABD   EVERETT.  293 

the  blood-royal  of  Great  Britain,  and  an  Oriental 
Satrap.  Yet  there  was  no  shock,  no  violent  associ- 
ation, no  far-fetched  comparison ;  the  steps  of  an 
invalid's  staircase  do  not  rise  with  a  gentler  gradu- 
ation, than  those  by  which  he  moved  on  his  intellect- 
ual steppings  from  plane  to  summit,  from  the  frozen 
lake  of  Middlesex  to  the  satrapy  of  India.  And  we 
do  not  know  but  the  very  fact,  that  we  found  to  our 
surprise,  we  had  drifted  unconsciously  so  very  far 
from  home  and  had  conquered  the  distance  with  no 
other  than  such  gentle  breezes,  and  yet  could  see  so 
plainly  one  harbor  from  the  other,  —  the  ice  from 
India,  and  India  from  the  ice,  —  redoubled  our  final 
satisfaction. 

But  although  we  thus  describe  the  fancies  which 
oratorize  his  style  as  being  clear  as  crystal,  and  never 
wandering  by  any  violent  or  wide  steps  from  the 
theme,  we  feel  that  this  alone  by  no  means  fully 
shows  the  kind  of  Beauty  which  pervades  his  dis- 
course. Other  elements  must  be  added  to  get  a 
clear  notion  of  it. 

We  think,  then,  that  there  is  an  obvious  principle 
of  Propriety,  an  appropriateness,  a  grace  of  decorum 
presiding  over  the  whole  play  of  his  fancy  and  sen- 
timent, which  is  no  inconsiderable  trait  of  true  beau- 
ty. And  generally  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  beauty 
he  most  affects  has  nothing  flashy  or  meretricious 
about  it ;  the  polish  is  all  a  hard  polish,  the  hues  are 
all  burnt  into  the  texture,  and  the  general  resulting 
coloring  is  more  like  the  clear,  mild  loveliness  of  the 
25* 


294  THE   PLATFORM. 

sunrise,  than  the  burning  views  of  purpling  gold 
with  which  the  sunset  dazzles  as  it  dies.  Indeed, 
the  whole  action  of  his  mind, —  the  rate  of  its  move- 
ment, the  form  of  its  expression,  the  topics  and  the 
figures  of  its  choice,  the  kind  of  force  it  employs,  — 
are  all  serene ;  inconsistent  equally  with  the  appear- 
ance of  feverish  heat  or  hectic  color. 

We  have  spoken  of  his  good  arrangement  of  mat- 
ter in  respect  to  the  clear,  short  sentence,  and  the  pro- 
gressive growth  of  the  idea  upon  the  mind.  But 
these  are  comparatively  minor  beauties ;  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  matter  of  a  speech  of  his,  viewed  as  an 
entire  work,  —  the  relation  of  the  whole  to  every  part, 
and  the  part  to  the  whole,  and  the  just  disposition 
of  all  the  parts  among  themselves,  commend  them- 
selves with  great  force  to  the  notice  of  the  student  of 
the  Beautiful ;  for,  upon  the  arrangement  of  the  ideas 
depends  more  if  possible  of  their  beauty,  than  upon 
the  ideas  themselves.  Indeed,  quite  as  much  of  the 
beauty  as  the  strength  of  the  impression  depends  on 
the  arrangement ;  and  how  much  the  strength  of  the 
ideas  depends  on  that,  we  shall  presently  notice. 

There  is  an  Italian  palace  which  overlooks  that 
sunny  Sea  to  which  the  classic  nations  gave  the 
name  of  "  The  middle  of  the  earth"  ;  it  stands  alone, 
a  fabric  to  the  eye  of  almost  absolute  beauty ;  it 
has  no  artificial  advantages  of  surrounding,  nt>  gay 
gardens  or  broad  parks  ;  its  architecture  is  not  castel- 
lated or  turreted,  its  material  is  plain,  its  face  is  uni- 
form, regular,  unbroken,  and  not  one  feature  in  that 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  295 

fair,  even  front  could  be  selected  as  a  special  beauty ; 
yet  it  stands  there,  at  once  impressive  and  graceful ; 
carved  into  the  image  of  beauty,  solely  by  an  artistic 
arrangement  of  its  parts  such  as  a  trained  genius 
only  could  have  planned.  If  such  beauty  can  be 
created  by  arrangement  alone,  unhelped  by  color  or 
surroundings,  how  much  more  responsive  must  be 
the  constitution  of  our  minds  to  such  an  architecture, 
when  planted  in  ornamental  scenes  and  heightened 
by  shadow  and  light!  Such  is  the  architecture,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  oratory  of  Everett ;  the  material  the 
best,  the  disposition  of  parts  most  happy,  and  the 
surroundings  made  up  of  the  most  appropriate  im- 
agery for  contrast  and  relief. 

We  cannot  leave  this  part  of  our  subject,  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  capital  quality  of  Everett's  oratory,  — 
Beauty,  —  without  saying  (for  we  wish,  as  far  as  we 
can,  to  be  precise  in  this  description ;  and  not  to  patch 
together  a  loose  coat  of  description  such  as  would  fit 
any  one  of  twenty  orators)  that,  as  the  hearer  listens, 
he  will  be  most  struck  with  this  element,  both  as 
regards  his  delivery  and  the  style  and  disposition  of 
his  matter,  as  it  appears  in  the  cadences.  There 
is  the  precise  point  where  there  is  the  most  apparent, 
obvious  beauty. 

As  his  voice  dies  away  gently  from  its  height,  and 
its  sentiment  sinks  mildly  from  its  emphasis,  and  the 
open  hand  gliding  down  with  retarded  vigor,  seems 
to  impose  a  hush  upon  the  stir  of  impulse  he  has 
just  before  awakened,  and  for  a  little  instant  there  is 


296  THE  PLATFORM. 

a  pause,  —  the  impression  on  the  sensitive  mind  is 
more  than  music :  it  is  music  in  the  highest  degree  in- 
tellectualized,  —  dying  notes  of  melody,  stamped  with 
sentiment  and  set  to  thought.  At  his  speech  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall  on  Webster's  death,  the  finale  was  perhaps 
as  fine  a  cadence  as  ever  fell  from  eloquent  lips :  — 

"His  sufferings  ended  with  the  day, 

Yet  lived  he  at  its  close, 
And  breathed  the  long,  long  night  away 
In  statue-like  repose ; 

"  But  ere  the  sun,  in  all  its  state, 

Illumed  the  eastern  skies, 
He  passed  through  glory's  morning  gate, 
And  walked  in  Paradise." 

As  he  uttered  this  peroration  of  poetry,  we  seemed 
to  see  the  great  man's  death-bed;  and  as  the  ca- 
dence, the  final  word  —  "Paradise"  —  stole  softly  and 
sweetly  from  his  lips,  and  his  form,  eye,  and  hand 
reached  forward  gently  but  apparently,  far  upward 
and  onward  to  the  sky,  we  could  almost  feel  as  if 
we  were  ourselves  for  one  instant  vanishing  from 
earth  with  him,  and  going  hand  in  hand  with  that 
great  Shade  up  to  that  "  morning  gate." 

The  element  of  Strength  in  Everett's  oratory  is 
powerful  and  well  developed.  The  world  is  rarely 
disposed  to  allow  to  any  one  man  more  than  one 
capacity ;  and  hence  it  happens  that  men  of  polish 
and  fruitfulness  of  mind  rarely  have  justice  given 
them  for  their  severer  intellectual  traits.  Men  will 
not  admit  that  the  fascinating  advocate  can  be  mas 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  297 

ter  of  the  laws,  nor  that  the  beautiful  declaimer  can 
be  firm  in  his  mental  grasp.  But  though  denied 
the  credit,  such  men  often  have  the  benefit  of  it,  in 
the  resulting  effect  upon  the  hearer  of  intrinsic  under- 
lying strength  of  thought.  He  often  believes  that 
the  declamation  or  the  description  has  influenced 
him,  when  the  effect  upon  him  has  been  also  due  to 
the  native  power  by  which  the  thought  was  origi- 
nated, and  by  which  it  was  brought  to  bear  on  his 
conviction,  by  its  division,  its  arrangement,  and  its 
mass.  How  many  pages  of  Macaulay  there  are 
(the  chief  writing  rhetorician  of  the  age,  a  writing 
orator,  indeed,  whose  words  almost  speak  right  out 
from  their  page)  which  seem  easy  reading,  and 
would  be  easy  hearing,  and  certainly  leave  the  im- 
print he  aimed  at,  clear  and  deep  in  the  mind  ! 
And  yet,  easy  as  they  are  to  read  or  hear,  they  must 
have  been  conceived  and  put  together  in  the  very 
sweat  of  his  brow ;  a  whole  congregation  of  facts 
and  forms  must  have  been  grasped  and  held  with 
iron  hold  in  his  mind,  from  which  to  select  just  the 
striking  point  for  the  instant  effect ;  and  the  relations 
of  the  whole  treatment  of  the  subject  must  have 
been  maintained  with  inflexible  vigor ;  so  that  the 
reader  might  not  be  turned  aside  a  hair's  breadth 
from  the  precise  object  aimed  at,  but  be  driven  there, 
and  there  fastened,  as  if  in  the  inevitable  grasp  of  a 
proposition  of  Euclid. 

Just  so  with  Everett's  composition,  there  is  a  good, 
strong,  solid  understanding  working  in  the  midst  of 


298  THE  PLATFOKM. 

all  his  pictures,  narratives,  and  exhortations.  Who- 
ever studies  them,  will  see  the  reason  for  them ;  and 
that  is  the  way  chiefly,  in  which  the  logical  and 
grasping  faculty  can  operate  in  the  orator's  produc- 
tions. His  business  is,  to  produce  an  effect;  that 
effect  must  be  reached  by  pleasing  the  mind  and 
senses,  and  touching  the  reason  of  the  hearer ;  but 
he  who  should  undertake  to  touch  that  reason  by 
reeling  off  long  chains  of  mathematical  demonstra- 
tion from  the  Platform,  would  soon  find  himself 
standing  alone  in  his  glory,  and  —  his  mathematics. 
No,  the  reasoning  faculty  of  the  orator  shows  itself 
in  getting  together  those  topics  which  there  is  the 
best  reason  to  use,  and  in  using  them  in  such  a  way 
as  the  best  reason  would  dictate.  If  any  one  care- 
fully looks  over  the  volumes  of  Everett's  contribu- 
tions to  the  literature  of  American  oratory,  he  will 
not  fail  to  see  that  in  all  his  orations,  business-like 
and  panegyrical,  there  is  a  broad  foundation  of  good 
sense  ;  there  is  strength  in  the  whole  view  which  he 
takes  of  the  theme,  and  in  the  principle  of  ramifica- 
tion which  runs  through  and  over  it ;  in  the  marshal- 
ling of  the  larger  and  lesser  bodies  of  thought;  in 
the  accuracy  and  generally  the  precise  adaptation  of 
the  facts  ;  in  the  telling  application  of  the  bright 
figurings  with  which  he  emblazons  and  exemplifies ; 
in  the  epithets  so  nicely  shaded  in  their  praise  or 
dispraise,  their  descriptive  or  their  merely  energetic 
force ;  everywhere  will  be  seen  a  good,  strong,  solid 
piece  of  work.  We  do  not  consider  him  as  vigor- 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  299 

cms  as  Webster,  but  we  consider  him  very  vigorous 
nevertheless.  Webster's  links  and  lines  of  thought 
were  chain  cables,  Everett's  are  tough,  stout,  service- 
able ropes. 

Of  the  essential  calibre  of  his  mind,  Everett  gave 
the  strongest  assurance,  when  he  was  Secretary  of 
State.  Those  great  State  Papers  of  his  —  more  par- 
ticularly that  one  in  which  he  traced  and  drew  the 
"  manifest  destiny "  march  of  America  all  through 
the  continent  and  on  to  Central  America  —  will  live 
in  the  nation's  memory,  as  a  possession  for  ever.  It 
stands  side  by  side  with  Webster's  celebrated  Epis- 
tle to  Austria,  wherein  he  planted  a  blow  upon  her 
moral  power  which  was  a  sort  of  moral  Austerlitz. 
Through  all  that  letter  to  the  British  Minister, 
Everett's  mind  moves  with  a  stately  vigor  which 
almost  sinks  the  rhetorician  in  the  statesman  ;  and 
the  same  mind  that  made  the  Letter  makes  the 
Speeches. 

The  Learning  which  directly  or  indirectly  appears 
in  his  speeches  is  really  immense.  Yet,  great  as  it 
is,  it  is  so  managed  as  only  to  give  an  air  of  general 
familiarity  with  the  subject  in  hand,  in  itself,  and  its 
dependent  fields  of  thought.  It  never  cumbers  the 
march  of  the  rhetorical  point ;  if  it  does  not  advance, 
it  certainly  never  obstructs  it.  A  great  wealth  of 
information  sometimes  peeps  out  in  a  single  allu- 
sion, with  the  mere  mention  of  which  he  is  satisfied 
without  pressing  it  further  ;  but  the  results  of  great 
reading  and  thinking  are  still  more  frequently  ex- 


300  THE  PLATFORM. 

hibited  in  what  we  may  call  the  philosophy  of  his 
elaborate  efforts,  —  the  sources  and  the  scope  of  his 
reasonings  and  arguments  in  favor  of  his  proposition. 

We  said,  in  treating  of  the  outside  of  his  compo- 
sition, that  his  diction  was  made  up  of  words  freight- 
ed with  pleasing  association  ;  and  while  we  are  upon 
the  subject  of  his  Learning,  we  may  add,  that  the 
words  are  also  incrusted  (if  we  may  be  allowed  the 
term)  with  learned  associations.  Polite  literature 
speaks  from  his  prose  in  every  direction.  The  words 
and  the  phrases  are  often  those  which  are  dear  to 
the  lovers  of  literature,  or  which  call  up  the  faces 
and  the  sentiments  of  the  great  thinkers  and  the 
beautiful  writers  who  have  dignified  and  decorated 
the  literature  of  our  tongue.  Often,  too,  in  idioms 
and  words,  classic  scenes  are  opened,  and  classic 
veins  of  thought  are  worked. 

But  with  all  his  vast  and  various  learning,  —  so 
great  as  if,  according  to  the  Scythian  fable,  he  had 
mastered  every  branch  of  science  by  slaying  the 
foremost  man  in  it,  —  there  is  one  plain  field  of 
home-learning  which,  we  are  free  to  say,  he  too  much 
neglects.  He  rarely  uses  the  plain,  homely  Saxon 
elements  of  strength  in  expression  or  topic.  The 
homely  words  and  e very-day  images  of  common  life, 
which  strike  the  common  apprehension  so  forcibly, 
and  which  in  master-hands  are  so  efficient,  —  which 
Webster  and  Fox  wielded  so  well,  and  which  Burke 
in  all  his  pomp  of  period  and  thought  did  not  dis- 
dain,—  these  he  neglects.  Doubtless  it  is  because 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  301 

they  offend  his  fine  sense  of  beauty ;  but  certainly 
it  is  with  injury  to  the  simple  energy  of  his  style.  A 
classic  expression  or  a  formula  of  phraseology  of 
standard  English  literary  use,  he  always  prefers  to 
the  home-bred  Saxon.  This  exclusion  of  the  cheap 
and  homely  but  telling  sources  of  emphatic  expres- 
sion, undoubtedly  however,  contributes  to  produce  the 
air  of  erudition,  and  appearance  of  special  study  in 
preparation,  which  characterizes  his  speeches. 

He  often  freshens  up  his  elaborate  matter,  and 
as  it  were  restores  it  to  life,  by  a  dramatic  way 
he  has  of  appropriately  displaying  some  physical 
object  illustrating  his  thoughts  before  the  eyes  of 
his  audience.  Thus,  in  an  agricultural  address,  after 
a  vivid  description  of  a  production  which  he  de- 
clared New  England  yielded,  brighter  and  better 
than  California!!  gold,  he  produced,  at  the  moment 
when  the  curiosity  of  the  people  had  reached  its 
climax  —  a  golden  ear  of  corn,  and  brandished  it 
before  their  eyes.  In  an  academic  address,  after  a 
beautiful  allusion  to  the  fiery  wire  which  was  des- 
tined to  travel  the  deep-soundings  of  the  ocean, 
among  the  bones  of  lost  Armadas,  he  emphasized 
the  description  by  displaying  a  veritable  piece  of  the 
Submarine  Atlantic  Telegraph  Cable ;  and  proceed- 
ing to  compare  that  wire  murmuring  the  thought  of 
America  through  leagues  of  ocean,  to  the  printed 
page ;  more  wonderful,  as  murmuring  the  thought  of 
the  poet  Homer  through  centuries  to  us,  he  held 
up  before  the  audience  a  little  volume  of  the  Iliad 
26 


302  THE  PLATFORM. 

and  Odyssey,  —  the  immortal  picture  unfaded  there, 
of  Hector's  parting  with  Andromache,  and  the  scenes 
of  Ulysses'  vagrancy. 

Yet  let  no  one  imagine  for  a  moment,  from  these 
collective  attributes  of  his  speeches,  such,  native 
beauty,  such  learned  allusion  and  simile,  and.  such 
grace  and  exquisite  texture  of  composition,  that  our 
subject  is  in  any  just  sense  of  the  term  a  mere  holi- 
day-orator, from  whose  mouth  fine  thoughts  flutter 
forth  on  the  butterfly  wings  of  flimsy  fancies  ;  that 
weight  of -matter,  that  just  remark,  that  occasional 
aphoristic  sententiousness,  —  the  pith  of  a  whole  phi- 
losophy packed  into  a  phrase,  —  all  these  particulars 
which  we  observe  scattered  through  the  text  of  his 
published  speeches  are  very  different  from  the  vapid 
bombast  and  empty  rodomontade  of  your  fancy- 
speaker.  Everett  has  appeared,  it  is  true,  on  many 
"  celebration-days  "  ;  but  it  has  been,  to  utter  to  the 
people  words  of  gravity  and  serene  power,  with  the 
last  touch  of  the  best  art,  —  apples  of  gold  in  pic- 
tures of  silver.  As  a  slight  but  decisive  indication 
of  the  standard  worth  of  his  eloquent  thoughts,  and 
his  power  to  make  the  practical  business  mind  sensi- 
ble of  their  sterling  value,  it  was  stated  recently,  by  a 
competent  judge  of  the  matter,  that  his  Oration  in  St. 
Louis,  at  the  founding' of  a  great  educational  insti- 
tution there,  produced  a  net  result  to  the  enterprise 
of  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  people  there 
are  Western  men,  not  Boston  men.  St.  Louis  is  in 
no  sense  a  "  modern  Athens  "  ;  her  people  are  enter- 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  303 

prising,  driving,  business  men.  Yet  one  of  the  citi- 
zens, after  hearing  Everett  on  this  occasion,  imme- 
diately subscribed  for  the  object  in  behalf  of  which 
he  spoke  one  hundred  thousand  dollars;  and  still 
another,  who  had  already  given  about  twenty  thou- 
sand Collars,  instantly  doubled  his  subscription. 

Of  all  parts  of  discourse  in  which  our  moderns  are 
imperfect,  that  of  the  Narrative  is  conspicuous.  The 
argumentation  of  uncultivated  men  with  us,  is  often 
strong,  from  the  mere  practical  and  earnest  native 
character  of  our  pecpfe;  and  their  imagery  is  striking, 
from  the  habits  of  free  discussion  and  free  thought 
universal  with  us  ;  but  the  composition  of  the  Narra- 
tive, which  is  the  subject  or  the  main  illustration  of 
a  speech,  demands  specific  study.  But  in  Everett's 
words,  the  Narrative  is  almost  perfect.  The  points 
of  fact  which  are  naturally  prominent,  which  to  the 
artist  eye  rise  naturally  over  the  level  of  the  action 
so  that  the  light  strikes  and  sparkles  on  them,  he 
presents  in  bold  perspective ;  and  then,  with  such 
charming  associations  of  minor  touches,  he  shadows 
the  unimportant  particulars  and  lightens  up  the 
material  details,  that  the  whole  story  is  laid  in  the 
mind  as  unconfused  and  bright  as  if  the  hearer  had 
seen  it  acted,  step  by  step,  to  the  glare  of  the  foot- 
lights. There  are  little  landscapes  in  his  oratorical 
scenery  fit  to  rank  with  the  most  picturesque  views 
of  the  classic  writers ;  they  are  not  close,  deep- 
colored,  and  dark-lined ;  they  are  wide-spreading 
and  cerulean  in  the  tone  and  color ;  not  drawn 


304  THE  PLATFOEM. 

with  the  sombre  severity  of  the  stern  pencil  of 
Tacitus,  but  rather  with  the  freedom,  ease,  and 
brightness  of  Livy's  vivacious  touch. 

Choate's  landscape  narratives,  if  the  term  is  al- 
lowable, are  intensely  impressive ;  but  in  a  way  very 
different  from  Everett's.  He  throws  over  the  whole 
a  lurid  confusion  of  light  and  shadow ;  such  as  the 
blending  indistinctness  of  a  ruddy  conflagration 
would  throw  over  the  irregular  buildings  of  a  town, 
making  everything  look  vague,  deep-shadowed,  and 
outlined  with  the  lofty  symmetry  of  towers  and 
gates  of  castellated  structures.  Other  speakers,  like 
Chapin,  for  instance,  paint  out  all  the  points  of 
their  word-picture  with  fiery  edging  but  a  more 
subdued  general  tone  ;  less  of  a  blaze,  to  be  sure, 
but  still  deceptive  and  distorting;  in  such  light, 
subjects  are  beheld  as  Nature  is  seen  when  the 
crimson  curtains  of  autumn  sunsets  fold  around 
meadows  and  tree-tops.  While,  again,  a  clear,  ex- 
act, gray  morning  light,  showing  things  precisely 
as  they  were,  illumined  the  atmosphere  of  Web- 
ster's mental  visions.  But  not  exactly  with  any 
of  these  comparisons  does  Everett's  picture  range. 
His  is  a  bright  moonlight  view,  where  all  is  seen 
like  "  Melrose  Abbey  seen  aright " ;  every  pillar  and 
point  visible  with  carving  and  engraving,  but  a  soft 
lustre  burnishing  the  whole ;  black  clouds  turning 
out  silver  edging,  and  a  flood  of  mild  and  level 
radiance  blending  all  irregularities  of  outline,  —  the 
serene  landscape  of  a  Lapland  night. 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  305 

He  is  an  equal  and  an  even  speaker.  There  are 
no  chas'ms  yawning  in  his  oratory,  alternations  of 
thought,  now  dazzling  by  their  height  and  then 
dragging  us  down  again  to  the  dust  of  common- 
place ;  one  moment  suffering  the  blood  to  languish 
lukewarm,  that  in  the  next  it  may  be  frozen  or 
fevered  by  turns,  to  produce  a  melodramatic  effect. 
When  he  mounts,  he  sails  upward  on  balanced 
wing ;  when  he  falls,  he  sinks  with  wide-spread 
pinions  gently  buoying  him  up  to  the  close. 

He  is  a  serene  speaker.  In  no  part  of  his  compo- 
sition or  manner  is  he  rough  or  abrupt.  He  shows 
no  sympathy  with  the  Western  style  of  Young 
America  oratory,  —  that  unique  union  of  wild-cat 
fierceness  and  pine-log  solidity.  Men  whose  coarse 
sensibilities  depend  on  such  concussions  of  their 
senses  for  a  vigorous  impression  of  thought  will 
hear  him  listlessly ;  and  will  feel  the  want  of  their 
appropriate  stimulant. 

We  have  said  that  his  composition,  in  respect  to 
its  general  beauty  and  the  particular  beauty  of  the 
narrative,  was  admirable  ;  let  us  say  besides,  that  in 
picturesque  and  striking  disposition  of  every  part  of 
the  thought,  speculative  and  practical,  imaginative 
and  actual,  he  is  to  the  last  degree  exact.  Nothing 
is  used  but  what  he  deliberately  means  to  have  seen 
and  scrutinized.  Nothing  is  wasted,  nothing  is  lost ; 
the  embroidered  hangings,  which,  on  all  sides,  drape 
with  fine  fancies  the  simple  thoughts,  are  never  suf- 
fered to  fall  in  careless  voluminousness ;  but  the  rich 
26* 


306  THE   PLATFORM. 

textures  of  precious  dye  are  studiously  displayed  by 
carefully  caught  folds  and  well-adjusted  falls. 

There  is  an  air  of  refinement  and  good-breeding, 
of  graceful  and  reposeful  power,  surrounding  and  giv- 
ing character  to  all  that  he  does.  He  never  dema- 
goguizes.  Although  possessed  of  powers  which 
would  enable  him  to  fool  the  people  "  to  the  top  of 
their  bent,"  the  calibre  of  his  intellect  and  the  turn  of 
his  taste  equally  put  him  far  above  such  vulgar  bids 
for  leadership.  Indeed,  he  does  not  stand  before  us  so 
much  in  the  light  of  an  oratorio  fighter,  scarred  with 
the  struggle  of  the  forum  and  covered  with  its  dust, 
as  of  one  radiant  with  the  polish  of  the  gilt  saloon 
and  rich  with  the  lore  of  libraries  and  the  sentiment 
of  lonely  walks.  He  speaks  always  in  perfect  good 
taste.  When  aroused  to  noblest  exhibitions  of  pro- 
test or  entreaty,  he  is  still  true  to  what  is  becoming, 
and  duly  governed ;  enthusiastic  in  the  highestde- 
gree  he  may  then  be,  but  it  is  the  enthusiasm  of 
beauty  and  grace.  When  he  rouses  himself  to  resist 
what  he  considers  really  formidable  wrong,  it  is  as  if 
some  marble  statue  —  the  guardian  of  a  sunny  slope  — 
broke  the  silence  of  its  chiselled  lip  to  dissuade  the 
invader  of  its  terraces,  by  sweet'  considerations  en- 
forced in  matchless  motions  and  with  dulcet  tones. 

One  of  his  happiest  occasions  and  one  most  con- 
genial to  his  feelings  was  the  recent  academic  festi- 
val celebrating  the  assembly  of  the  alumni  of  his 
Alma  Mater,  Harvard  University.  At  this  gathering 
(in  1857)  his  address  was  illustrated  with  all  these 


EDWARD   EVEEETT.  307 

traits  which  we  have  attributed  to  him;  and  in  a 
manner  to  provoke  new  encomiums,  even  from  his 
oldest  admirers. 

On  that  day  the  church  was  crowded,  not  with 
the  general  public  but  with"  scholars  and  academi- 
cians only ;  men  of  the  best  culture  in  the  land,  of 
the  highest  taste  which  our  rough  democracy  will 
tolerate,  and  of  the  first  distinction  in  many  of  the 
best  walks  of  human  activity ;  they  were  rallied, 
not  by  beat  of  military  drums  nor  placard  of  polit- 
ical caucus,  but  by  ringing  the  old  College  chimes, 
and  by  the  gushing  music  which  bade  them  "  gather, 
gather  "  for  the  days  of  Auld  Lang  Syne.  Bound 
by  the  tie  of  College  brotherhood,  and  filled  with 
the  ancient  learning  and  the  old  enthusiasm,  the 
children  of  the  endeared  and  venerable  "  Alma  Ma- 
ter," seven  hundred  strong,  sat  before  the  orator. 
Fifty  years  before,  he  himself  entered  the  College 
as  a  Freshman.  Twenty-five  years  before,  on  the 
same  stage,  he  won  the  first  trophy  of  national  re- 
nown for  oratory,  by  his  address  to  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Society,  when  Lafayette  was  present,  and 
he  so  memorably  apostrophized  the  heroic  French- 
man. In  those  fifty  years  by  universal  consent  he 
had  won  the  according  vote  of  every  son  of  Harvard, 
as  being,  for  scholarly  culture  and  delightful  speech, 
"the  bright,  consummate  flower"  of  her  academic 
civilization.  Mr.  Winthrop,  at  the  dinner  of  the 
alumni,  which  took  place  afterwards,  only  gave 
voice  to  the  general  sentiment,  when  he  felicitously 


308  THE  PLATFORM. 

pronounced  him  "  The  first  scholar  and  most  finished 
orator  in  America." 

To  this  audience  gathered  from  every  part  of  the 
land,  hailing  him  at  once  as  the  best  teacher  and  the 
best  exemplar  of  academic  lore,  Everett  spoke.  If 
ever  a  scholar  like  him  could  speak  well,"  it  would 
be  on  such  a  day.  No  coarse  topics  of  vulgar 
brawling,  no  overshadowing  emergency,  all  har- 
mony and  brotherly  love,  —  that  assembly  must 
have  seemed  to  Edward  Everett,  as  he  stood  before 
them  and  compared  them  with  the  noisy  and  dusty 
gatherings  of  real  forensic  conflict,  as  "  Paradise 
Regained  "  to  "  Paradise  Lost." 

His  address  was  nominally  an  argument  for  col- 
lege culture.  It  was  really  a  rambling  but  exquisite 
collection  of  thoughts  upon  the  subjects  to  which 
college  studies  point.  As  an  argument,  it  was  not 
powerful,  nor  probably  did  he  intend  it  to  be  so 
much  an  argument  as  a  picturesque  exhortation; 
designed  to  recommend  college  culture  by  enthusi- 
astic and  beautiful  pictures  of  its  thoughts  and  its 
themes.  The  finale  of  the  whole  was  an  unequalled 
word-picture  of  the  noble  sphere  and  boundless 
scope  of  the  human  mind;  ushered  in  to  defend 
metaphysical  studies.  He  drew  the  glorious  beau- 
ties of  this  created  orb,  its  mighty  mechanisms,  its 
myriad  forms  and  sounds  of  light  and  loveliness  ; 
all  these  would  want  an  audience  to  appreciate  or 
enjoy  their  charm,  were  it  not  for  the  mind  of  man. 
Then  drawing  a  fanciful  analogy  from  the  deri- 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  309 


vation  of  the  word  "  metaphysics,"  pera 
he  delineated  the  field  of  mental  studies,  as  the  ap- 
propriate close  and  crown  of  life  ;  after  the  battle 
of  life,  after  its  banquet,  after  the  garland  has  been 
gained  and  its  laurel  withered,  after  Life,  after 
Death,  —  then  does  the  study  of  the  mind  go  on. 
And  as  he  closed,  he  rose  in  no  noisy  climax  of 
peroration  ;  but  he  spoke  more  gently  yet  impres- 
sively to  the  concluding  cadence  and  the  final  word. 
Lord  'Napier,  the  English  ambassador,  listened  to 
him  with  English  ears  ;  and  he  justly  called  him,  in 
allusion  to  the  spell  of  his  eloquence,  "  The  Magi- 
cian of  Massachusetts." 

We  have  heard  Mr.  Everett  often,  but  we  never 
heard  him.  speak  with  a  fuller  tone  or  a  more  kind- 
ling charm  than  in  this  happy  hour.  The  electric 
circuit  of  sympathy  between  him  and  his  hearers 
was  established  almost  from  his  first  word  ;  and  upon 
it  he  sent  thrill  after  thrill  of  intellectual  joy,  vibrat- 
ing and  pulsating  to  the  sensibilities  of  all,  as  if 
their  very  heart-strings  were  held  in  the  nervous 
grasp  of  his  trembling  and  upraised  fingers. 

He  chose  to  call  his  address  "  An  argument  for  cul- 
ture "  ;  it  was  rather  a  rich  and  joyous  Ode,  —  an  Ode 
which  might  almost  have  been  set  to  music,  and 
chanted  by  scholars  with  the  chaplets  on  their  brows. 

In  the  use  of  Pathos,  he  is  very  ready  and  natural. 
The  natural  tenderness  of  his  character  (for  notwith- 
standing his  ordinary  chilly  demeanor,  we  think 
him  by  nature  warm-hearted)  has  been  encouraged 


310  THE  PLATFOKM. 

by  his  experiences  in  life ;  and  the  tones  of  pathetic 
fervor  in  which  he  often  utters  sweetly  sad  senti- 
ments are  true  "  touches  of  heart-break."  We  heard 
him  once  in  a  caucus  harangue,  as  foreign  as  possi- 
ble to  pathos  by  its  topics  and  the  boisterousness  of 
a  great  crowd,  throw  off  a  short  sentence  or  two  in 
allusion  to  his  own  official  career,  about  what  he 
should  pray  that  "  men  might  say  of  one  Governor 
of  Massachusetts,  when  he  should  be  in  his  not  un- 
welcome grave,"  which  we  know  made  the  water 
leap  from  the  tear-fountains,  in  at  least  one  man's 
eyes,  instantaneously.  And  in  the  lament  over 
Webster,  we  saw  old  men  and  young  men  affected 
in  unison  as  he  struck  the  chords  of  sorrow's  sympa- 
thy and  pride's  lament,  and  paying  their  tearful  trib- 
ute at  once  to  the  memory  of  the  dead  and  the  pathos 
of  the  living  orator. 

Everett's  physical  temperament,  we  are  inclined 
to  believe,  does  not  materially  aid  his  oratory.  Un- 
doubtedly it  is  not  hard  or  heavy ;  but  it  is  by  no 
means  spontaneously  agile  and  kindling.  It  would 
never  be  of  itself  an  oratorio  motive  power.  It  is 
alive  enough  to  respond  to  the  warmth  of  his  mind 
when  that  is  glowing,  but  not  otherwise.  Not,  then, 
in  his  temperament,  but  in  his  mind,  all  the  enthu- 
siasm which  he  ever  exhibits  has  its  seat.  And  that 
mind  of  his  was  naturally,  we  think,  very  enthusiastic 
and  sensitive.  If  his  physical  temperament  had  kept 
pace  with  it,  and  his  learned  wisdom  had  not  put  a 
drag  on  his  impulse,  we  really  think  Edward  Ev- 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  311 

erett  would  have  been  a  decided  progressive ;  and 
rather  radical  than  otherwise  in  his  oratory  and  states- 
manship. But  his  profound  knowledge  of  men  and 
things  has  made  him  doubt,  and  his  gentle  tempera- 
ment has  made  him  deliberate.  When  he  welcomed 
Lafayette,  and,  in  the  conscious  ardor  of  imaginative 
vision,  painted  prospective  scenes  of  glory  for  the 
country  and  the  country's  guest,  his  enthusiasm  and 
animation  was  in  the  highest  degree  hopeful,  nay, 
almost  combative  ;  against  all  opposition  he  was 
ready  to  throw  down  the  glove,  and,  whatever  dan- 
gers menaced,  to  predict  a  consummation  of  glory. 
We  recollect  that  in  the  multitude  of  articles  upon 
that  speech  written  about  the  time,  one  excellent, 
dry  man,  from  the  University  at  Cambridge,  declared 
that  he  saw  no  fault  in  it  except  that  the  young 
orator  had  let  his  imagination  get  hold  of  him,  and 
had  spoken  about  things  which  savored  of  enthusi- 
asm, which  "  might  not,  after  all,  be  realized  " ;  as  if 
the  very  field  of  eloquence  was  not  that  in  which 
the  wishes  father^  the  thought,  conceiving  them  in 
daring  hope,  and  careless  of  their  certainty.  If  it  be 
true  that  Rufus  Choate,  his  immediate  competitor 
for  the  admiration  of  the  city  in  which  they  both 
live,  possesses  "  a  radical  sensibility  with  a  conser- 
vative intellect,"  we  must  say  that  we  cannot  help 
thinking  that  Everett  naturally  possesses  exactly  the 
reverse ;  to  wit,  a  radical  intellect  writh  a  conserva- 
tive sensibility.  We  verily  believe  that,  as  far  as 
mere  natural  original  tendencies  of  mind  went,  as 


312  THE   PLATFORM. 

apparent  in  all  he  has  said  from  the  days  of  the 
Lafayette  speech  to  the  day  on  which  he  wrote  the 
famous  manifest-destiny  letter,  as  Secretary  of  State, 
(a  sort  of  published  national  speech,  unspoken,)  he 
has  always  had  within  him  an  impulse  quite  kin- 
dred to  fillibustering  and  propagandism.     The  wis- 
dom of  thoughtful  learning   has   checked  that  ten- 
dency ;  the   freezing    influence   of  a   cautious   and 
unimpulsive    temperament   has   chilled  it ;   but  the 
presence  of  the  inborn  quality  accounts  for  much 
of  the  movement,  life,  and  animation  of  his  oratory. 
The  resulting  force  of  those  opposites  is  a  placid, 
well-managed,  and  often  affecting  glow  of  thought 
and  tone.     This  appears  most  in  the  lofty  and  well- 
balanced    spirit    of   Americanism    in    his   speeches. 
He  is  far  too  learned  to  be  narrow ;  he  is  far  too 
catholic  to  be  illiberal;  but  he  does  love,  and  de- 
lights to  contemplate,  the  heroic  age  of  America. 
No  mythical  twilight  air,  in  which  the  national  bene- 
factors are  exaggerated  into  gigantic  shadows,  but 
the  real,  wholesome  day  of  great  trial ;  from  which 
the  heroes  walked  forth,  to  stand  in  clear  light,  in 
just  proportions,  famous  to  all  time,  with  the  apothe- 
osized demigods  of  classical  tradition.      With  this 
first  breathing  of  the  Republic,  Everett  is  full.     His 
speeches  exhale  the  odor  of  a  better  day.     As  Web- 
ster beautifully  said  of  the  name  of  John  Hancock, 
so  it  may  be  said  of  his  Speeches,  they  are  "  fragrant 
with  Revolutionary  memories."    Every  great  Revolu- 
tionary battle-field  in  the  country  has  had  its  battle- 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  313 

picture  drawn  by  him  ;  every  great  man  of  the 
Revolution  has  had  some  tribute  of  appreciative 
admiration  from  him.  Turn  over  the  index  of  the 
subjects  of  his  published  orations,  you  will  see  the 
names  of  Lexington,  Concord,  Bunker's  Hill  and  its 
monument,  the  Bloody  Brook  where  fell  the  "  flower 
of  Essex,"  Cambridge,  under  whose  elm,  still  stand- 
ing, the  American  army  first  saw  its  general ;  and 
with  these  scenes,  the  men,  —  Washington  himself, 
Hamilton,  Adams  and  Jefferson,  Lafayette,  and 
Joseph  Warren  the  major-general,  dying  on  the 
field  ere  he  had  time  to  read  the  commission  of  his 
rank.  Polished  and  courtly  as  Everett  is  in  every- 
thing, we  feel  in  his  words  and  spirit  the  assurance  of 
his  native  love  of  free  institutions.  We  feel  that  he 
could  never  have  stooped  to  servile  panegyric  on  a 
throne,  but  must  have  withered  had  he  grown  up  in 
its  shadow,  even  though  a  modern  Maecenas  prof- 
fered its  graceful  patronage.  No,  in  his  earnest  in- 
culcation of  the  true  elements  of  our  republican  em- 
pire, of  an  antique  love  of  our  country,  of  the  vast 
importance  of  individual  education,  of  the  value  of 
public  improvements  and  blessed  public  memories, 
and  of  the  indispensable  necessity  of  genuine  Chris- 
tianity, we  see  at  once  the  autograph  of  his  democ- 
racy and  the  inspiration  of  his  fervor. 

Some  men's  fervor  bursts  forth  with  such  an  im- 
pulse whenever  they  open  their  mouths  on  a  stirring 
public  occasion,  that  the  audience  are  almost  magic 
struck ;  the  flash  of  their  passion-burnt  eyes,  and  the 
27 


314  THE   PLATFORM. 

tones  of  their  thrilling  voice,  give  to  their  often  com- 
monplace sentiments  a  rousing  energy,  as  if  the  Flag 
flapped  over  their  head  and  the  band  played  Hail 
Columbia  all  the  time  they  were  speaking,  in  chorus 
with  their  words.  But  Everett's  impulse,  however 
it  rises,  leads  him  only  through  prepared  paths,  and 
with  a  well-considered  gait.  Everything  he  says  is 
most  critically  cast  and  recast.  Occasionally  on  the 
threshold  of  a  speech  he  may  introduce  something 
extempore,  suggested  by  the  immediate  scene  before 
him,  but  ninety-nine  parts  out  of  a  hundred  you 
may  venture  to  assert  is  memorized  exactly ;  and  in 
its  boldest  aspirings  its  music  is  measured  :  it  is  the 
chant  of  the  Hallelujah  Chorus  rather  than  the  bois- 
terous war-song.  And  here  we  may  take  notice,  in 
passing,  that  the  intrinsic  strength  of  his  mind  may 
be  incidentally  inferred  from  considering  the  prodig- 
ious powers  and  readiness  of  that  memory,  by  which 
he  can  thus  speak,  from  one  to  four  hours,  an  elabo- 
rate pre-written  discourse  ;  with  not  a  single  note  or 
paper  help,  and  without  an  instant's  hesitation  or 
any  interruption  of  the  mellifluous  flow  of  luminous 
periods. 

In  the  address  for  the  Dudley  Observatory  at  Al- 
bany in  1856,  which  he  took  several  hours  in  deliv- 
ering, he  amazed  everybody  by  the  accuracy  and 
extent  of  his  recollection.  The  subject  being  As- 
tronomy, he  had  numerous  isolated  propositions, 
figures,  and  facts  to  present ;  and  all  these  in  exact 
number  and  word  were  uttered  like  the  rest,  memo- 
riter. 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  315   - 

Whenever  you  hear  Everett,  therefore,  you  may 
be  sure  you  are  gleaning  the  best  harvest  of  his 
thoughts ;  for  he  never  on  any  occasion  speaks  with- 
out being  thoroughly  and  even  finically  prepared, 
both  in  matter  and  in  manner.  Every  word  in  his 
elaborately  simple  and  easy  style  is  fitted  into  its 
place  with  the  precision  of  each  brick  in  the  com- 
pact wall ;  every  climax  and  cadence  of  modulation 
is  practised  and  pre-arranged,  as  the  painter  sketches 
and  pre-arranges  in  his  mind  the  burning  and  the 
fading  flashes  of  his  color. 

Nearly  all  the  superior  orators  trust  as  little  as 
possible  to  the  moment's  inspiration.  They  studi- 
ously prepare  beforehand  as  much  matter,  as  they 
can  by  any  means  reconcile  with  the  ease  and  flexi- 
bility of  address  indispensable  in  presence  of  an  au- 
dience. Most  of  them  put  their  pen  on  all  their  best 
words,  and  indeed  write  as  miich  as  they  can  find 
leisure  for.  Erskine  in  England,  and  William  Wirt 
in  America,  wrote  books  as  well  as  sentences.  Prob- 
ably Lord  Brougham's  quill  has  shed  the  strange 
light  of  ink,  on  all  his  happiest  oratoric  conceptions. 
Chancellor  D' Israeli,  it  is  well  known,  keeps  a  huge 
commonplace  book,  in  which  he  jots  down  from  day 
to  day  and  year  to  year  thoughts  and  expressions 
which  arrest  his  glance ;  and  from  this  source  con- 
stantly draws  sparks  for  the  shining  text  of  his  dis- 
courses. 

There  are  other  orators  of  famous  position,  who 
pre-cornpose  quite  as  accurately  without  the  pen. 


316  THE   PLATFORM. 

The  thoughts  of  Curran  seemed  to  him  to  roll  in 
upon  his  mind  with  the  most  rapturous  undulation, 
when  he  stood  behind  his  violoncello  and  fiddled  on 
those  long  chords,  as  high  as  his  head.  These 
thoughts,  which  he  thus  fiddled  into  his  fancy,  he 
carefully  watched  and  critically  memorized ;  then  at 
the  apt  moment  they  pealed  forth  upon  his  auditors 
with  the  power  of  a  whole  orchestra  of  fiddles.  Web- 
ster, in  preparation  for  a  mighty  moment,  walked  his 
room ;  setting  his  thoughts  into  words  so  deep  and 
burning,  —  they  took  their  exact  stations  like  letters 
ploughed  in  adamant  by  lightning. 

Everett,  so  far  from  seeking  to  conceal  his  ample 
preparation,  is  very  properly  proud  of  it.  And  how 
much  it  reflects  upon  the  arrogance  of  youth,  which 
too  often  airs  its  audacious  conceits  "  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment"  before  audiences  to  whom  Edward 
Everett,  at  the  age  ,of  sixty,  thinks  himself  unequal 
to  speak  without  learned  and  practised  labors !  We 
remember  hearing  how,  in  a  political  campaign  a  few 
years  ago,  he  astonished  a  Boston  Young  Men's  Com- 
mittee by  this  trait.  They  came  to  him  about  a  fort- 
night beforehand  with  a  respectful  request  that  he 
would  address  a  great  Faneuil  Hall  caucus.  "  Why, 
gentlemen,"  said  the  monarch  of  the  Platform,  "  you 
only  give  me  two  weeks  to  prepare,"  and  he  declined 
the  invitation;  only  "two  weeks  to  prepare!"  and 
the  orator  who  said  so  was  at  the  time  a  man  of 
absolute  leisure ;  a  leisure  almost  Ottomanic  in  the 
profound  security  of  a  secluded  and  splendid  library. 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  317 

It  may,  however,  be  thrown  in  as  a  slight  qualifi- 
cation of  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  Everett's 
thorough  and  exquisite  detail  of  preparation,  that 
the  whole  temper  of  his  genius  is  literary  and  studi- 
ous. We  doubt  if  he  could  speak  extempore,  if  he 
would.  Addison,  Secretary  of  State  for  England, 
was  nevertheless  powerless  to  tell  the  world  his 
thought,  or  indeed  to  tell  it  to  himself,  till  he  got  a 
pen  in  his  fingers ;  and  perhaps  it  is  equally  so  with 
Everett,  Secretary  of  State  for  America.  He  has 
certainly  "the  dash  of  ink  in  his  blood."  White 
paper  and  black  marks  are  the  wadding  and  powder 
of  all  his  intellectual  volleys.  He  is  all  over,  a  book- 
man. At  Harvard  University,  where  they  all  copy 
him ;  and  where  their  annually  renewing  homage 
seems  to  float  incense  to  him  as  from  an  ever-burn- 
ing altar  with  the  name  of  "  Everett"  upon  it, — there 
the  Alma  Mater  still  fondly  recalls  that  brilliant  boy 
who  was  fitted  for  college  at  nine  years  of  age,  and 
entered  her  learned  precincts  at  thirteen  ;  to  run  the 
round  of  academic  glories  with  a  splendid  ardor,  like 
Phaeton  wheeling  the  golden  chariot,  but  without  a 
fall. 

Thomas  De  Quincey,  it  was  said,  when  he  was 
fifteen  years  old  could  have  addressed  an  Athenian 
mob  with  more  correctness  than  his  schoolmaster 
could  an  English  one.  And  at  about  the  same  pe- 
riod, Everett  could  probably  have  spoken  with  the 
same  correctness,  not  only  to  a  Grecian  mob,  but  to 
27* 


318  THE   PLATFORM. 

several  mobs  at  a  time,  in  consecutive  order,  in  as 
many  languages  and  tongues. 

Everett's  imagination  should  not  be  confounded 
with  the  mere  fancy  which  beautifies  his  words  and 
raises  his  thoughts,  for  it  deserves  a  special  line  of 
notice.  There  are  passages  in  his  rhythmic  prose,  de- 
serving mark  as  pure  poetry  of  the  higher  orders  of 
imagination.  With  the  literal  poetic  Muse,  we  believe 
he  has  not  often  directly  dallied  ;  but  no  poet's  eye,  in 
finest  frenzy  rolling,  ever  gave  to  "  airy  nothing  "  its 
"  local  habitation  "  with  more  exquisite  success  than 
he  achieved,  when,  on  the  evening  of  the  birthday  of 
our  national  Father,  he  painted  his  fame  as  following 
with  the  pale  moon  the  circle  of  commemoration 
quite  round  the  continent,  and  losing  itself  at  last  in 
dying  murmurous  sounds  amid  the  barbarous  islands 
of  the  Australian  seas.  That  passage  wih1  be  re- 
membered and  recited  with  the  famous  picture  of 
Miat  "morning  drum-beat  keeping  company  with 
the  hours  and  encircling  the  earth  with  a  perpetual 
round  of  the  martial  airs  of  England,"  —  the  finest 
single  stroke  of  poetry  with  which  Webster's  rigid 
prose  ever  relaxed  or  rose.  Both  these  passages  are 
moulded  in  as  pure  a  fire,  as  are  the  creations  of 
Shelley's  shadowy  sensibility. 

Everett's  eloquence  is  comparatively  independent 
of  "  occasions."  He  makes  his  own  occasion.  His 
address  upon  Washington,  —  that  address  with 
which  he  has  gone  about  America,  like  a  modern 
Peter  the  Hermit,  preaching  a  new  crusade  to  rescue 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  319 

another  Holy  Sepulchre  for  the  benefit  of  Christen- 
dom,—  that  address,  so  far  from  being  called  out  by 
any  immediate  occasion  of  the  day,  was  for  a  time 
actually  silenced  by  a  commotion  of  the  day.  On 
the  other  hand,  Daniel  Webster's  stubborn  rectitude 
and  simplicity  of  intellect  was  so  sturdy,  that  he 
never  thought  or  spoke  above  or  outside  of  the  crisis 
of  the  hour ;  but  let  that  crisis  be  what  it  might,  he 
always  rose  level  with  its  demand. 

This  is  the  New  England  order  of  mind ;  an  order 
whose  greatest  displays  are  on  the  practical  side  of 
life,  and  rise  only  to  the  actual  demand  of  life.  But 
such  a  mind  as  Everett's  is  not  distinctively  a  New 
England  mind.  Such  minds  may  be  tinged  with 
the  hues  of  their  local  scenery,  but  they  belong  to  a 
realm  of  wider  and  more  radiant  horizon,  —  to  the 
republic  of  letters  ;  and  they  take  their  definite  char- 
acteristics from  that  cosmopolitan  citizenship.  Not 
the  local  New  England  impulse,  but  the  universal 
rhetorical  impulse,  sets  the  time  of  their  pulsations. 

But  the  occasions,  as  we  said  in  beginning,  when 
he  attains  his  highest  reach  of  power  and  when  we  are 
permitted  to  behold  him  in  fullest  force,  —  strength 
in  his  arm  and  lightning  in  his  eye,  —  are  chiefly 
twofold ;  —  in  depicting  scenes  partly  historical,  part- 
ly imaginary ;  and  in  warm,  pathetic  exhortation, 
partly  genuine,  partly  artificial.  His  well-known 
vision  of  the  Pilgrims  ploughing  their  forlorn  way 
from,  poverty  and  persecution  through  wild  waves 
and  savage  men  to  the  empire  of  a  new  orb,  is  a 


320  THE   PLATFORM. 

masterpiece.  And  in  his  last  great  effort  upon 
Washington's  birthday,  in  one  skilfully  contrived 
scene,  the  vision  of  Marlborough's  castle  "  rose  per- 
fect like  an  exhalation,"  to  the  sound  of  his  sweet 
voice.  We  seemed  to  see  the  splendid  structure  in 
all  its  harmonious  amplitude;  but  with  its  three 
black  words  of  death  —  "Ambition,"  "Avarice,"  "In- 
famy "  —  scored  all  over,  and  looming  up  before  us, 
as  boldly  defined  against  the  sky  as  on  Allston's 
canvas  Belshazzar's  banquet-hall  stands  out,  with  its 
words  of  doom  upon  the  wall,  searing  the  eyeballs  of 
the  king.  But  though  there  was  "  lightning  in  his 
eye  "  as  he  spoke  this,  it  was  heat-lightning ;  not  the 
terror  of  that  light  which  plays  amid  the  thunders. 

And  for  exhortation,  we  never  heard  a  more  ad- 
mirably arranged  and  altogether  triumphant  burst, 
than  the  closing  adjuration  to  preserve  the  country 
intact,  which  he  then  addressed  to  the  nationality  of 
Americans.  In  that  great  burst  of  reason  and  feel- 
ing blended,  he  followed  almost  literally  the  line  of 
Demosthenes'  immortal  oath  to  the  Athenians  in  the 
Crown  Speech,  —  "  No,  by  Marathon,"  &c. ;  wherein 
he  adjured  his  countrymen  by  their  renowned  battle- 
fields to  act  for  their  country  and  keep  up  her  un- 
dying spirit,  though  it  might  lead  to  certain  discom- 
fiture and  death ;  and  even  so,  said  Everett  substan- 
tially, "  No,  by  Bunker-hill,"  we  will  never  suffer  our 
country's  foundations  to  be  shaken  ;  and  then,  as  he 
passed  on  by  the  same  form  of  phrase  to  asseverate 
by  all  the  other  monumental  battle-fields  of  the 


EDWARD   EVEEETT.  321 

Washington  era,  he  lost  for  a  time  all  appearance 
of  finished  gesture  or  prearranged  art ;  and  with  both 
fists  absolutely  clinched,  and  both  arms  raised  on 
high,  and  his  graceful  figure  growing  almost  angular 
with  his  energy,  armed  and  eloquent  at  all  points. 
he  pealed  forth  as  with  a  thousand  trumpets  into 
the  heart  of  every  man  who  heard  him,  the  glorious 
sentiment  of  love  of  our  Country,  first,  last,  and  all 
the  time,  against  the  insidious  fiend  and  the  defiant 
foe.  If  his  delivery  of  this  great  passage  was  sad- 
dened with  pathos,  and  fell  short  in  ahy  degree  of 
the  "monstrous  vehemence,"  which  ./Eschines,  at  the 
School  of  his  art,  attributed  to  his  rival,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  he  was  not  speaking  to  an  exci- 
table Italian  assembly  in  the  Forum,  nor  to  a  sensi- 
tive Grecian  gathering  in  the  Pnyx  ;  but  to  a  matter- 
of-fact  American  audience,  in  a  city  not  consecrated 
like  Athens,  to  art  and  eloquence,  but  devoted  to 
barter  and  commerce.  To  such  a  people,  and  in 
such  a  place,  we  think  he  spoke  then  with  a  passion 
and  a  vehemence  quite  beyond  himself,  and  fully  up 
to  the  highest  sufferance  of  the  occasion.  Old  men 
—  scholars  and  men  of  action  alike  —  who  had  heard 
him  in  his  earliest  prime,  when  the  dews  of  youth 
were  bright  upon  his  brow,  now  admitted  that 
they  had  heard  since  that  time  no  such  classic  elo- 
quence, imbodying  in  such  matchless  harmony  every 
grace  of  speaking  with  every  felicity  of  thought. 
"  Everett,"  they  said,  "  was  all  himself  again  " ;  his 
genius  blooming  out  now  in  the  comparatively 


322  THE  PLATFORM. 

winter-time  of  age,  with  an  Indian- Summer  efflores- 
cence. 

But  to  us  it  seemed  as  he  stood  there,  on  the  day 
made  festal  by  the  birth  of  Washington  ;  mementos 
of  the  great  chief  on  every  side  speaking  in  cannon 
and  in  pageant,  —  earth,  air,  and  sky  alive  with 
Washington,  —  as  he  stood  there  to  speak  as  in 
his  actual  presence,  —  that  splendid  audience,  the 
"  beauty  and  the  bravery  "  of  Boston  before  him,  — 
rising  almost  literally  rank  upon  rank  to  the  skies ; 
the  scrolled  words  of  Washington  sparkling  on  the 
purple  velvet  for  his  background,  and  the  starred 
flag  of  the  Union  streaming  round  the  cornice  capi- 
tal of  the  hall,  and  forming  as  it  were  a  wreath  for 
the  orator's  brow  hung  in  colossal  folds  high  above 
his  head  ;  —  to  us  it  then  seemed  as  if  the  spirit  of 
the  youth  of  the  Republic  gave  back  to  him  his  own 
youthful  genius  ;  not  in  the  efflorescence  of  an  In- 
dian Summer  only,  but  the  dawn  of  another  Spring. 

Ere  we  close,  we  may  throw  in  a  dash  or  two 
upon  the  praise  we  have  bestowed  on  his  general 
style  of  delivery,  by  admitting  that  he  does  not 
succeed,  as  many  speakers  do,  in  passing  oft'  his 
prepared  matter  for  new-coined  thought.  Rufus 
Choate,  for  instance,  will  speak  an  hour,  and  at  least 
one  quarter  of  what  he  says  shall  be  struck  out  new 
from  the  unexpected  signs  of  a  juror's  sceptical  face ; 
yet  no  mortal  shall  be  able  to  say  where  he  goes  off 
the  track  of  his  prepared  thought ;  because  every- 
thing he  says,  seems  comparatively  extempore.  If 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  323 

Everett  extemporizes  at  all,  which  sometimes  hap- 
pens a  little,  it  might  not  be  any  more  possible  to 
detect  the  break  with  him,  but  for  an  opposite  rea- 
son ;  in  the  former  case,  the  whole  would  seem  ex- 
tempore, in  the  latter,  the  whole  would  seem  pre- 
pared. Now  it  should  be  the  object  of  the  orator, 
to  make  you  forget  that  he  is  an  orator ;  to  sweep 
you  out  from  the  moorings  of  conscious  thought  as 
it  were,  into  a  sea  of  splendor  and  sensation  ;  where 
your  mind  may  seem  to  float  dazzled  and  drunk 
with  rapture.  Here  Everett  fails.  He  has  not  a  suf- 
ficiently spontaneous  self-abandonment  in  oratory, 
and,  therefore,  the  hearer  never  forgets  the  orator. 
John  Foster's  nominally  extemporaneous  prayers 
were  shrewdly  termed  by  an  old  lady,  whose  ad- 
miration had  not  eclipsed  her  discernment, — 
"  Foster's  Stand-up  Essays."  Triumphant  and 
charming  as  these  orations  are,  the  hearer  never  for- 
gets that  they  are  Everett's  "  Stand-up  Essays." 
And  of  a  piece  with  this  criticism  was  one  made 
upon  the  formality  of  his  pulpit  prayers,  when  he 
was  a  clergyman  ;  his  petitions  were  so  precise,  they 
never  allowed  the  hearer  in  the  impulse  of  devo- 
tion, to  wander  out  of  sight  of  the  prayer-maker 
for  a  moment ;  and  so  it  was  appreciatingly  but 
keenly  said  at  the  time,  "  He  makes  the  best  prayer 
ever  addressed  to  a  Boston  audience." 

Neither  does  he  ever  exhibit  that  "  mystery  of  com- 
manding "  with  which  Henry  Clay  had  the  ability  by 
nature  to  overpower  men,  as  with  Olympian  nod. 


324  THE   PLATFOKM. 

Nor  is  he  like  those  few  men  whom  we  meet  in  the 
way  of  life,  whose  brain-work  so  looks  out  through 
their  eyes,  and  whose  essential  nature  so  speaks  itself 
imperial  in  their  address,  that  we  feel  instinctively 
their  calm  praise  a  benediction,  their  blame  a 
sentence.  On  the  contrary,  his  oratory  must  speak 
for  itself,  by  its  simple  sterling  weight  of  various 
merit ;  and  he  himself  is  like  his  work,  —  elegant, 
cogent,  learned,  and  serene. 

Some  men  who  speak  give  you  an  impression, 
that  you  cannot  exactly  account  for,  of  their  possess- 
ing great  resources  unemployed,  and  a  mental  mus- 
cularity comparatively  untaxed  and  untried  in  its 
best  capacities.  .  You  feel  they  might  have  been 
more  than  speakers,  —  learned  men,  or  men  of  deeds 
as  well  as  words  ;  and  this  impression  —  not  such  an 
idea  as  Webster  almost  always  gave,  that  he  might 
do  better  if  he  would  as  a  speaker  —  but  that  some- 
how there  was  a  good  deal  more  power  in  the  man 
generally  than  the  world  gave  him  credit  for,  en- 
hances their  oratorical  effect.  But  Everett  does  not 
impress  in  this  way.  We  rather  think  he  is  all- 
developed  ;  that  the  surface  has  seen  all  the  ore  of 
that  early-worked,  but  various  and  wealthy  mine. 

The  Sophist  of  the  East  wept  for  the  rivalship  of 
Roman  oratorical  art  as  he  listened  to  the  unchal- 
lengeable periods  of  Tully.  We  fear  that  who- 
ever shall  undertake  to  carry  forward  the  ora,toric 
repute  of  New  England  on  any  scholarly  basis,  will 
contemplate  the  genius  of  Everett  with  tears  no  less 


EDWARD   EVERETT. 


sincere.  For  since  Fisher  Ames  we  do  not  think, 
for  scholarly  and  all-accomplished  oratory,  his  equal 
has  been  heard  in  that,  if  in  any  latitude. 

Gazing,  then,  upon  the  first-rate  figure  which  thus 
he  presents ;  and  carrying  out  the  admiring  recogni- 
tion of  vast  genius  which  the  sophist  of  a  rival 
country  could  not  keep  back  from  Tully,  we,  the 
countrymen  of  our  orator,  may  well  exclaim,  in  sum- 
ming up  the  view,  how  admirable  in  all  his  decla- 
mation,—  in  enunciation,  how  easily  audible;  in 
modulation,  how  flexible  and  varied ;  in  intonation, 
how  full  and  true ;  in  emphasis,  how  marked,  —  rising 
in  climax  with  what  exact  increments  of  force,  fall- 
ing in  cadence  with  what  just  abatement  of  sound, 
—  in  every  grace  and  art  of  speech,  how  singular  a 
master ! 

It  was  the  boast  of  Cicero,  a  little  while  before  he 
leaned  from  the  fatal  litter  to  the  blow  of  Antony's 
assassins,  that  from  the  opening  to  the  close  of  his 
orator-life,  he  had  always  spoken  for  the  benefit  and 
the  glory  of  his  countrymen ;  alike  accusing  Verres 
when  returning  from  the  questorship  of  Sicily ;  driv- 
ing out  Catiline ;  or  yielding  a  tardy  homage  to  the 
Csesarean  throne.  We  look  upon  the  oratoric  career 
of  the  most  Ciceronian  of  our  orators  as  certainly 
suggestive  to  him  of  that  consciousness  of  good  in- 
tention. To  our  mind,  his  orations  present  one  long 
view,  every  scene  of  which  is  picturesque  and  patri- 
otic ;  from  the  morning  of  the  welcome  to  Lafayette, 
to  the  evening  of  the  last  panegyric  upon  Washing- 
28 


326  THE  PLATFORM. 

ton,  (when  by  his  trembling  tongue  the  memorial 
homage  of  America  rose  again,  as  if  kindled  by  a 
fresh  grief,)  on  through  anniversary  and  festive,  con- 
gressional, agricultural,  and  diplomatic  addresses, 
—  it  is  all  one  long,  brilliant,  serene  procession  of 
historic  forms,  of  noble  thoughts,  of  glorious  enthu- 
siasms. His  good  intentions  may  not  always  have 
led  his  actions  or  his  lips  precisely  as  we  would  have 
desired  ;  but  the  animus  of  his  career  is  pure,  uni- 
form, and  constant. 

While  America  lives,  American  literature  will  live 
and  prosper  and  improve;  but  when  her  scene  is 
ended  and  the  volume  is  closed,  the  lover  of  repub- 
lics, we  are  sure,  will  turn  no  pages  with  more  satis- 
faction than  those  which  embalm  the  oratoric  coun- 
sels of  the  New  Englander  —  Edward  Everett. 

CHAPIN   AND    BEECHEK. 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  expressed  the  opinion  that 
the  Christian  ministry  was  the  field  of  all  others 
on  earth  for  eloquence ;  it  was  the  field  of  the  in- 
visible, the  infinite,  and  the  eternal.  It  is  record- 
ed that  a  French  Abbe  preached  a  sermon,  on  a 
certain  Sunday,  in  which  he  so  availed  himself 
of  these  attributes,  that  his  appalled  people  went 
home,  put  up  the  shutters  of  their  shops,  and  for 
three  days  gave  themselves  up  to  utter  despair. 
George  Whitfield's  astonishing  performances,  and 
Edward  Irving's  marvellous  exhibitions,  half  of  earth 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  327 

and  half  of  the  other  side, —  (indeed,  he  claimed  the 
miraculous  gift  of  tongues,)  —  will  by  tradition  haunt 
the  minds  of  even  another  generation.  It  is  one 
chief  element  favorable  to  power  in  the  pulpit,  that 
the  audience  is  entirely  convincible ;  they  do  not 
confront  the  speaker  with  their  printed  votes  in  their 
pantaloons  pockets,  as  is  the  case  in  politics ;  nor  do 
they  look  him  in  the  eye  with  their  minds  made  up 
by  the  evidence  already  sworn  to  on  the  stand,  as 
happens  to  the  jury  advocate.  Lord  Brougham  has 
indeed  expressed  his  belief  that  the  jury  audience, 
notwithstanding  their  oath  to  render  a  true  verdict 
according  to  the  law  and  the  evidence,  comes  much 
nearer  than  a  political  one  to  possessing  true  free- 
dom of  will,  to  respond  to  the  successful  touches  of 
the  advocate's  genius  in  argument.  But  this  can 
only  be  practically  true  in  certain  criminal  cases. 
Platform-speaking,  which  usually  takes  up  great 
moral  questions,  made  by  circumstances  into  great 
popular  questions,  is  really  only  another  branch  of 
pulpit-speaking.  The  stereotype  field  of  thought 
which  Charles  Sumner  and  Wendell  Phillips  and 
other  humanitarians  traverse,  has  all  the  ingredients 
of  popular  success  which  peculiarly  characterize  the 
pulpit ;  their  themes  are  moral,  touching  the  soul's 
affairs  as  well  as  the  bodies ;  they  are  boundless  and 
exalted  in  their  reach  and  scope ;  and  they  are  open 
questions,  upon  which  people's  minds  are  not  made 
up,  but  lie  open  to  conviction.  On  this  general 
ground  of  the  pulpit  and  the  platform  combined, 


328  THE   PLATFORM. 

Chapin  and  Beecher  present  commanding  figures. 
We  have  heard  others  more  excellent  in  separate 
gifts  of  discourse,  more  elaborately  learned,  or  bap- 
tized with  a  diviner  unction  of  unearthly  spirituality, 
or  more  tasteful  and  literary;  but  take  them  on  the 
whole,  —  considering  their  physical  power  of  electri- 
fying men,  their  variety  of  fancy,  their  fund  of  polite 
and  common  allusions,  their  familiarity  with  the 
affairs  of  men  —  they  stand  above  any  pulpit  ha- 
ranguers  to  whom  we  ever  listened  in  this  country. 

They  illustrate  very  different  tendencies  and 
thoughts  of  the  day.  Edwin  H.  Chapin  is  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  most  liberal,  all-embracing  Chris- 
tianity. The  ideas  of  the  culture  of  morals,  and  the 
march  of  all  mankind  through  fiery  probations  to 
ultimate  beatitudes,  find  in  him  their  great  and 
catholic  expounder. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
born  on  the  Plymouth  Rock  of  the  Puritan  Church. 
He  is  the  most  liberal  and  accomplished  orator  of 
incarnate  Puritanism.  He  exhibits  the  utmost  verge 
and  latitude  of  liberality  into  which  the  Puritan  idea 
can  germinate.  He  is,  in  short,  the  consummate 
flower  of  New  England  pulpit  theology. 

We  heard  them  both  for  the  first  time  under  cir- 
cumstances favorable  to  their  peculiar  styles  of 
speech.  The  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  ad- 
vertised to  make  an  address  in  Park  Street  Church, 
in  Boston,  —  that  church  which  fills  as  large  a  space 
in  the  ecclesiastical  annals  of  New  England  as  it 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHEK.  329 

covers  material  space  by  its  wide-spread  walls. 
"  Brimstone  Corner,"  scoffers  used  irreverently  to 
call  it,  in  the  days  when  Dr.  Edward  Griffin,  of  ter- 
rible memory  to  the  evil-minded,  played  his  appall- 
ing cannonade  upon  their  sins.  The  advertised 
Beecher  on  this  occasion  is  the  son,  as  is  well  known, 
of  that  sturdy  pioneer  of  Puritanism,  —  old  Dr. 
Beecher ;  who  is  aptly  termed,  "  the  father  of  more 
brains  than  any  man  in  America,"  and  who  justifies 
the  appellation  equally  by  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin," 
"  The  Conflict  of  Ages,"  and  "  Brother  Henry." 

Long  before  the  time  of  opening  the  exercises  of 
the  evening  in  question,  we  had  ensconced  ourselves 
in  a  snug  out-look,  which  commanded  the  scene. 
Suddenly  the  gas-lights  from  a  hundred  orifices 
poured  their  enlivening  influence  on  the  hitherto 
gloomy  throng ;  the  trumpet  notes  of  the  great  organ 
pealed  upon  the  ear;  and  amidst  light  and  noise  and 
universal  approbation,  not  loud  (the  sacred  place 
forbade  that)  but  deep,  —  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
mounted  the  pulpit  platform. 

The  introductory  was  over,  —  and  he  began.  He 
took  his  position  behind  the  desk,  whose  standing- 
place  was  on  a  level  with  the  platform,  —  there  he 
took  his  place,  but  it  was  as  a  place  of  departure, 
not  of  permanence ;  a  place  to  rush  from  and  come 
back  to,  not  to  stand  long  at ;  for  in  truth  his  utter- 
ances were  not  only  "winged  words,"  they  were 
walking  words,  to  judge  from  the  locomotive  energy 
with  which  they  led  him  in  the  course  of  the  even- 
28* 


330  THE  PLATFORM. 

ing  across  and  over  and  around,  and  sometimes  al- 
most through  the  stage.  And  he  had  some  written 
notes  when  he  began ;  but  where  they  went  to  before 
he  got  through  we  could  no  more  tell,  than  we  pre- 
sume when  it  was  over  he  could  say,  how  he  had 
got  off  from  them  in  what  he  had  ejaculated;  and  for 
two  hours  of  unflagging  attention  he  talked  and  he 
walked  before  that  spell-bound  crowd,  —  conversing, 
denouncing,  describing;  now  telling  funny  stories, 
making  allusions  to  the  slang  of  the  day,  making 
quotations  from  the  grand  old  masters  of  speech; 
now  breathing  out  threatenings  upon  the  objects  of 
his  wrath,  and  again  bursting  into  benedictions  upon 
imagined  philanthropies  and  ideal  cures  for  all  the 
sorrows  of  the  struggling  race  in  slavery.  In  all 
that  rush  of  two  hours  he  did  not  speak  for  any  two 
quarters  of  an  hour  alike  in  tones  or  words.  He  was 
rough,  and  yet  beautiful ;  he  was  fierce  as  a  lion,  yet 
gentle  as  a  lamb  ;  —  terrible,  thrilling,  triumphant, — 
he  ruled  us  as  we  listened  with  victorious  energy; 
and  we  turned  away  at  last,  impressed  with  new 
convictions  of  the  queenly  powers  of  eloquence,  and 
wondering  whether  after  all  he  had  not  produced 
something  in  the  "modern  Athens,"  which  would 
have  set  the  blood  a  going  in  the  heart  of  an  old 
Greek  elocution  teacher,  in  the  very  midst  of  the 
school  of  Isocrates.- 

We  have  heard  a  man  speak  who  made  an  im- 
pression as  if  a  vast  piece  of  mechanism  were  play- 
ing before  the  eyes  with  myriad  golden  and  flashing 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  331 

wheels  in  diverse  and  yet  harmonious  music,  —  so 
easy,  so  smooth,  yet  so  fiercely  moving  was  his  ora- 
tor-course, —  the  tones  flying  from  the  "  ivory  ram- 
part of  his  teeth,"  faster  and  faster,  and  now  a  paren- 
thesis slipping  out,  swifter  than  thought,  —  chang- 
ing, alternating,  and  verging  into  slow  orotund  tones 
of  impressive  weight,  or  flashing  into  cracking  em- 
phasis like  a  volley  of  pistol-shots ;  but  all  advancing 
the  object,  like  the  oiled  and  glittering  engine  swing- 
ing through  its  myriad  movements,  without  jar  or 
chafe,  —  curious,  steady,  strenuous,  sublime. 

But  with  no  such  diversity  of  serene  strength  does 
Beecher  sway  the  senses,  or  take  captive  the  sympa- 
thetic ear;  more  properly  when  we  would  suggest 
him,  let  us  think  of  the  groaning  timber,  and  the  can- 
vas splitting  into  shreds  over  the  storm-pressed  ship 
as  her  straining  bulk  heaves  on  the  race-horse  billow, 
or  sinks  in  the  seething  foam.  Something  like  that 
tempest-picture  rather  is  the  irregular  march  of  his 
impetuous  thought. 

Chapin,  we  heard  originally  in  a  very  different 
place  from  Park  Street  Church,  and  on  an  occasion 
much  better  fitted  for  epidictic  or  parade-speaking, 
than  for  the  close  hand-to-hand  tilt  against  slavery 
in  which  Beecher  had  presented  himself.  It  was  in 
the  famous  old  Hall  in  Boston,  whose  arches  to  every 
sensitive  and  informed  mind,  must  for  ever  whisper 
back  so  many  oracles  of  those  "  elder  orators  "  of  the 
Republic,  whose  resistless  eloquence  fulmined  across 
the  water,  and  shook  the  jewels  from  the  diadem 


332  THE  PLATFORM. 

of  "  The  Georges."  It  was  Faneuil  Hall,  whose 
mighty  memories  seem  always  beckoning  upward 
the  straggling  thoughts  of  oratorio  genius,  as  the 
captured  flags  in  King  Henry's  Chapel — trophies  of 
England's  triumphs — are  ever  bending  from  the  bal- 
ustrade, to  fire  the  heart  of  new-created  knighthood. 
The  occasion  was  an  interesting  one;  it  was  the 
great  annual  festival  of  that  denomination  of  Chris- 
tians whose  benign  and  catholic  creed  shuts  the 
gates  of  the  sky  on  no  poor  mortals.  There  was  & 
large  audience.  They  were  mostly  seated  at  long, 
thin  tables  of  refreshment,  scattered  wire-drawn 
across  the  ample  floor  of  the  hall ;  but  it  was  evi- 
dent that  the  vast  assemblage  had  come  there  for 
thoughts,  not  things ;  for  comfort,  information,  and 
cheer  in  their  way  of  life.  Much  eloquent  sense  and 
some  nonsense  had  been  aired,  when  the  chief  lumi- 
nary of  the  hour,  in  obedience  to  an  imperative  call, 
slowly  and  heavily  rose. 

"We  were  at  first  disappointed  in  Chapin's  ap- 
pearance. Before  he  got  into  his  inspiration,  he 
looked  quite  ordinary ;  a  large  rotund  body,  almost 
Fallstaffian  in  its  proportions,  capacious  but  clumsy 
chest,  not  tall  nor  short,  and  a  head  round  as  a 
monk's,  from  which  he  peered  so  earnestly  through 
his  glasses,  that  he  seemed  all  eyes  and  spectacles. 
Thus,  he  rolled  up  on  to  the  platform,  a  great  fat 
man,  all  in  black,  —  a  black  bulk  of  body,  a  black 
beard,  a  black  head ;  the  only  relief  to  the  undistin- 
guishable  elements  of  blackness  being  a  white  face 


CHAPIN  AND  BEECHER.  333 

which  seemed  small  for  such  a  full  length,  and  the 
eager  eyes  which  glittered  through  the  spectacles  like 
the  lights  in  the  top  of  a  light-house.  He  began  in 
a  colloquial  way  with  a  slight  but  appropriate  pleas- 
antry which  gained  the  ear  at  once  by  its  kind,  frank 
cordiality  of  tone;  but  in  a  few  moments  the  ani- 
mating associations  of  the  historic  Hall,  the  influ- 
ences of  the  twilight  hour  and  the  Christian  gather- 
ing got  absolute  possession  of  him,  and  he  rolled 
along  in  one  unfettered  tide  of  emotion  to  a  height 
of  noble  eloquence.  His  address  was  highly  imagi- 
native, and  charged  full  with  vivacity  and  fire ;  there 
were  no  tricks  of  quack  speakers,  sudden  unnecessary 
changes  and  unlooked-for  pauses,  but  soul-felt  fervor 
and  spirit-lifting  fancies.  Often  he  spoke  with  dou- 
bled fists,  his  form  rocking  and  bending  and  trem- 
bling under  the  bold,  bright  thoughts  which  raced 
athwart  his  mind.  With  prodigious  passion,  and  in 
a  tone  which  shook  us  all  like  a  mimic  earthquake, 
he  rolled  out  his  conviction,  that  "  when  a  great  truth 
is  uttered  for  humanity,  the  coffins  of  the  mighty 
dead  lift  their  lids  and  the  heroes  turn  in  their 
graves";  and  however  far-fetched  the  declaration, 
he  made  it  at  the  moment  a  fixed  fact  in  the  minds 
of  every  one  of  us  into  whose  eyes  he  glared.  By 
this  time,  that  clumsy  form  and  heavy  face  were  vis- 
ibly amended  ;  the  figure  grew  shapely  and  comely ; 
it  seemed  strung  up  to  a  fair  proportioned  altitude, 
and  the  broad  brow  and  clear  eyes  beamed  so  bright- 
ly, that  the  whole  face  shone  and  was  characterized 


334  THE  PLATFORM. 

by  their  intellectual  illumination ;  now  he  looked  in- 
deed transformed ;  it  would  have  needed  no  strain  of 
imagination  to  fancy  him  a  Brahmin  or  a  Buddhist 
priest,  uttering  mystical  spells  amid  incantations  of 
eloquence.  And  as,  turning  from  the  ideal  vision  of 
the  graves  of  the  martyrs  of  truth,  he  descended  to 
describe  the  actual,  a  splendid  picture  was  unfurled 
to  us  of  the  vast  metropolis  of  trade,  —  imperial  New 
York,  sitting  queen-like  at  the  gates  of  the  West- 
ern Continent,  the  stars  of  empire  at  her  feet,  the 
diadem  of  commerce  on  her  brow;  and  levying  her 
princely  tolls  upon  the  barter-currents  of  a  world. 

He  spoke  about  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  and 
it  was  elevated,  dignified,  and  in  keeping  through- 
out; at  moments  when  his  frame  heaved  with  its 
most  irrepressible  emotion,  —  he  took  his  audience 
with  him  like  an  avalanche ;  but  through  it  all  he 
was  the  perfect  master  of  himself,  grand,  not  startling, 
rising  regularly,  not  uproariously ;  every  cadence  of 
descending  tones,  every  climax  of  intense  pitch  of 
voice  maintained  with  entire  precision  and  with  every 
evidence  of  self-command ;  there  was  no  moment  in 
which  you  felt  that  he  did  not  know  exactly  where 
he  was,  in  feeling  or  in  thought ;  no  moment  in  which 
you  trembled  for  the  successful  close  of  any  one  of 
his  tremendous  periods  ;  the  whole  was  intellectual 
as  well  as  passionate ;  both  brain  and  blood  worked 
equally  together,  —  the  temperament  never  ran  away 
with  the  thought,  the  thought  never  chilled  the  life. 

The  combined   oratorio   and  festal  character   of 


CHAPIN   AND   BEECHER.  335 

the  scene,  and  the  prodigious  enthusiasm  created, 
called  vividly  to  mind  Everett's  description  of  the 
spectacle  presented  in  that  same  hall,  at  another 
banquet,  when  another  and  very  different  natural 
orator  was  the  hero.  It  was  when  Edward  Everett 
and  Sargeant  S.  Prentiss  addressed  and  responded 
to  each  other's  compliments.  It  was  upon  the  oc- 
casion of  the  well-remembered  tour  northward, 
made  by  Prentiss  after  his  Congressional  vindi- 
cation of  his  rights,  under  the  broad  seal  of  the 
sovereign  State  of  Mississippi.  No  man  in  Ameri- 
ca ever  wielded  the  people,  when  they  were  assem- 
bled in  large  bodies,  more  completely  than  Prentiss. 
He  had  such  magnetism,  such  easy  abandonment, 
such  chivalry  of  thought  and  tone,  —  the  white 
plume  of  a  knight  without  fear  and  without  re- 
proach, seemed  floating  over  his  head  as  he  spoke. 
Mr.  Everett  has  recorded  how  brilliantly,  how  grace- 
fully he  responded  on  this  occasion,  when  called 
upon  by  a  toast  at  the  table  in  Faneuil  Hall. 
Many  who  were  present  still  love  to  tell  how  com- 
pletely they  were  all  taken  by  storm  by  him ;  and 
how,  as  he  went  on,  the  applause,  beginning  with 
those  who  saw  his  inimitable  face  and  gesture, 
rushed  over  the  sea  of  heads  and  rolled  along  the 
great  galleries  in  a  hurricane  of  hand-clappings.  He 
must  have  looked  eloquent  from  head  to  foot ;  they 
would  have  sat  through  an  earthquake  to  hear  him. 
So  Chapin,  in  the  best  moments  of  his  rhapsody,  had 
his  finger  on  every  man's  pulse,  — the  very  breath  of 


336  THE   PLATFOKM. 

the  audience  seemed  suspended, — then  a  pause, — 
and  then  a  crash  of  applauding  noises. 

When  next  Chapin  was  announced  to  speak  in 
the  same  place,  there  was  the  same  expectant  crowd. 
He  was  very  pleasing,  but  not,  however,  in  such  fine 
vein  as  before ;  and  a  member  of  the  managing  com- 
mittee afterwards  said  that  the  orator  remarked  to 
him  before  beginning,  "  These  good  people  have 
come  down  here  this  afternoon  in  such  crowds,  ex- 
pecting to  hear  as  good  a  speech  as  they  say  mine 
turned  out  to  be  last  year,  but  they  '11  be  mistaken  ; 
they  think  it's  mighty  easy  to  make  such  a  speech, 
but  a  successful  effort  has  too  much  luck  about  it,  in 
speaker  and  hearer,  to  be  foretold  precisely  " ;  and  it 
was  even  so. 

It  was  thus,  by  a  combination  of  mere  luck  with 
passion,  that  the  most  audacious  sentence  ever  ut- 
tered in  the  English  language  in  a  court  of  law,  was 
got  off  successfully  by  Erskine.  It  was  in  his  argu- 
ment for  defendant  in  the  crim.  con.  case  of  "  Howard 
and  Bingham."  He  had  been  arguing  that  Mr.  Bing- 
ham,  the  defendant,  having  been  the  favored  lover  of 
the  lady  long  before  the  marriage,  and  Mr.  Howard, 
the  plaintiff,  having  wedded  her  by  the  influence 
of  parents  and  family  alone,  her  heart  had  remained 
married  to  its  idol,  notwithstanding  the  ring  on  the 
hand ;  and  with  marvellous  power  he  pressed  upon  the 
jury  the  view,  that  it  was  the  defendant  who  had  been 
defrauded  by  the  espousal,  rather  than  the  plaintiff  by 
the  adultery.  This  part  of  the  case  he  wound  up  by 


CHAPIN   AND   BEECHEE.  337 

the  astonishing  adjuration  to  the  jury,  "  I  say,  BY 
GOD,  that  man  is  a  ruffian  who  disputes  these  prin- 
ciples." So  fortunate  was  he  in  carrying  it  all  off, 
that  the  jury,  when  they  first  went  out,  were  actually 
disposed  to  give  damages  for  the  defendant,  the  se- 
ducer ;  and  they  finally  returned  into  court  with  only 
a  petty  verdict  for  the  plaintiff,  whose  prerogatives 
had  been  so  defiled.  The  luck  of  oratorio  victory  is 
something  like  the  luck  of  battle  victory.  It  is  often 
due  to  sudden  inspiration  and  sudden  opportunity. 

These  uncommon  men  are  in  many  respects  very 
much  alike ;  in  their  manner  of  delivery,  their  pres- 
ence, and  their  matter  of  discourse.  Their  form  and 
figure  is  alike  rather  bluff  and  burly,  and  suggestive 
of  good  cheer  and  a  hearty  grip  of  the  hand,  rather 
than  the  fastidious  and  delicate  intellectuality,  such 
as  belongs  usually  to  children  of  genius.  You  see 
at  a  glance  that  they  are  not  of  the  asthmatic  order 
of  speakers,  —  the  "  indigestion  "  school.  Each  of 
them  looks  and  speaks  as  if  he  had  the  stomach  and 
the  digestion  of  a  war-horse.  And  good  honest  laughs 
are  theirs,  and  strong,  big-breasted  chest-tones  of  voice, 
—  tones  and  laughs  that  take  right  hold  of  your 
heart  and  lead  captive  the  cordial  multitude.  They 
have  not,  like  many  scholarly  and  refined  speakers, 
a  shyness  as  if  they  thought  they  were  intellectual 
egg-shells,  and  trembled  to  put  either  mind  or  body 
into  too  close  a  contact  with  you,  for  fear  of  being 
crushed;  they  look  as  if  they  would  always  meet 
you  more  than  half  way,  in  a  battle  physical  or  men- 
29 


338  THE  PLATFORM. 

tal.  In  short,  to  happen  upon  them  without  know- 
ing that  they  were  the  most  popular  preachers  and 
lecturers  of  the  day,  —  born  orators,  the  legitimate  off- 
spring of  Apollo,  —  you  would  vote  them  indiscrimi- 
nately "  glorious  good  fellows,"  Beecher  more  partic- 
ularly so ;  especially  if  you  happened  to  run  against 
him  on  top  of  a  stage-coach  in  the  country,  sitting 
by  the  side  of  the  Jehu  as  he  cracked  his  long  whip, 
and  saw  him  kindled  into  boyish  jubilancy  by  the 
dew-sparkling  scenes  they  were  driving  through. 

Their  manner  of  delivery  is  equally  natural  and 
unstudied.  Beecher,  perhaps,  is  rather  more  strong 
and  fierce  in  his  utterance,  —  more  of  what  may  be 
called  a  slam-bang  style  of  delivery,  —  but  both  are 
rapid  and  strong.  With  the  one,  however,  it  is  often 
the  rapidity  of  mere  energy,  with  the  other  it  is  more 
frequently  the  velocity  which  springs  from  impas- 
sioned sentiment.  In  listening  to  them,  when  in  full 
movement,  the  first  impression  is  that  of  surprise  and 
sometimes  amazement;  and  when  they  are  really 
under  full  headway,  they  speak  in  a  way  whose  ef- 
fect is  more  that  of  astonishment  than  of  a  genuine 
artistic  admiration.  Beecher,  under  his  high-pressure 
of  passion,  walks  about  much  more  than  Chapin  ;  in- 
deed, his  activity  has  sometimes  suggested  to  us  as 
not  inappropriate  the  old  Latin  question  put  by  a 
sneering  hearer  to  the  Roman  declaimer,  who  circum- 
scribed the  whole  forum  as  a  platform  in  his  honest 
energy,  —  "  How  many  miles  of  eloquence  have  you 
walked  to-day,  my  friend  ?  " 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  339 

But  whether  moving  their  legs  or  brandishing  their 
arms,  passion  pulls  the  pulleys,  not  art.  Possibly 
they  may  have  tried  a  little  elocutionary  discipline 
in  gesture  at  some  time,  but  they  could  not  have  got 
much  good  from  it;  for  when  their  arms  fly  up  or 
beat  down,  whether  it  is  above  or  below  certain  pre- 
scribed lines,  as  a  breast  line  or  a  line  across  the 
neck  for  example,  they  no  more  know,  than  they 
know  whether  their  tongue  goes  to  the  roof  or  the 
bottom  of  their  mouth,  as  they  enunciate  their  strik- 
ing syllables.  Ardors  like  theirs  are  superior  to  any 
schoolmaster.  "  If  your  hand  in  gesture,"  said  the 
wise  schoolmaster,  "  goes  up  of  itself  higher  than 
your  head,  it  is  right ;  for  it  is  sent  up  there  by  pas- 
sion, and  passion  knows  more  than  art."  It  would 
be  pretty  difficult,  in  describing  their  manner,  to 
tell  where  Chapin's  arms  did  not  go,  or  into  what 
shape  Beecher's  sinewy  body  did  not  twist  and  turn, 
in  the  course  of  a  sustained  display.  Their  voices 
are  tremendous ;  that  vast  requisite  for  popular  effect 
they  have  in  all  perfection.  A  musical  voice  may 
seduce  senates,  but  a  mighty  voice  alone  can  man- 
age the  multitude;  that  power  alone  can  say  tri- 
umphantly to  those  proud  waves,  "  Peace,  be  still ! " 
And  with  these  great  voices,  they  deliver  themselves 
with  the  most  effect  when  they  wind  into  their  rising 
climaxes  of  thought,  and  go  off  in  long,  swelling, 
sustained  flights,  gnashing  and  chafing  and  holding 
you  long  and  high  up  before  they  let  you  down  on 
a  smooth,  sinking  cadence. 


340  THE  PLATFORM. 

We  have  heard  men  say  who  saw  Daniel  Web- 
ster in  Faneuil  Hall  in  the  days  of  his  majesty,  that, 
as  he  told  them  how  John  Hancock  wrote  his  name 
at  the  head  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  as 
if  it  was  written  across  the  firmament  in  letters  of 
living  light,  the  tumultuous  swell  of  his  own  spirit 
seemed  by  sympathy  to  heave  up  their  souls,  as  if 
a  huge  billow  had  surged  up  under  their  armpits ; 
even  so,  in  some  measure,  have  we  felt  the  rough- 
rising  and  hearty  periods  of  these  men  lift  and  sus- 
tain, as  if  their  sturdy  right  arms  themselves  had 
wound  around  and  raised  the  sympathetic  hearers. 
For  both  of  them,  when  in  their  tremendous  im- 
pulses, strike  into  such  an  oratoric  stride,  that  if  you 
catch  their  impetus  at  all,  —  and  you  can  hardly 
help  it,  —  your  intellect  is  whirled  about,  and  urged 
on,  and  tossed  up  and  down  in  a  dancing  revelry 
of  ideas,  which  might  not  inappropriately  be  termed 
a  maelstrom  waltz  of  mind. 

The  matter  of  their  discourse  and  exhibitions  is 
in  many  features  similar.  As  might  be  expected  in 
Platform  speakers,  —  with  no  immediate  adversary 
to  confront,  to  catch  their  slightest  trip,  no  greedy 
rival  to  dart  upon  their  least  mistake,  no  lion-hearted 
foe  to  follow  with  remorseless  feet  their  favorite 
phrases,  demolishing  the  splendid  sentences  with 
iron  logic  or  inexorable  fact,  and  "close  for  the 
plaintiff,"  as  at  the  Bar  or  in  the  Senate,  —  as  a 
matter  of  course,  it  follows  that  their  material  of 
composition  is  rich,  various,  pictorially  patched  and 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  341 

loosely  tacked  together ;  but  that  is  no  matter,  —  it 
is  not  made  for  studious  scrutiny,  —  it  is  not  ivory 
enamel  or  minute  mosaic,  —  but  coarse  canvas,  —  to 
be  lit  up  into  transparencies,  and  made  to  blaze  with 
panoramic  splendor,  under  the  gas-light  glories  of 
their  illuminating  genius.  They  struggle  for  the  in- 
stant effect,  not  for  the  "  all  hail  hereafter"  of  litera- 
ture and  statesmanship ;  and  for  that  instant  effect 
they  struggle  so  energetically,  that,  as  was  said  of 
Randolph  of  Roanoke,  men  would  rather  listen  to 
their  nonsense  (if  they  spoke  nonsense)  than  to 
other  people's  sense.  When  the  phantoms  evoked 
by  their  thrice-animated  passion  have  struck  won- 
der for  the  hour,  they  can  be  taken  down,  like  the 
lath  and  canvas  of  the  stage,  and  laid  away  for 
other  "  performances  " ;  — nobody  but  himself,  though, 
can  take  to  pieces  the  framework  of  the  true  platform 
orator's  pyrotechnics ;  it  is  all  for  the  moment,  but 
he  only  knows  the  pins  by  which  that  scaffolding  is 
put  up. 

Both  Chapin  and  Beecher  have  evidently  read 
variously,  and  somewhat  at  random.  Images  and 
illustrations  from  all  sorts  of  literatures  leap  to  the 
tip  of  their  tongue.  So  much  knowledge  of  so 
many  things  enriches  their  composition,  that  some 
might  call  them  learned  ;  learned  certainly  they  are, 
in  all  the  traits  and  types  and  tastes  of  our  own  im- 
mediate time.  No  cormorant  was  ever  greedier  of 
its  game  than  they  are  of  every  popular  throb  of 
impulse  or  sentiment,  to  play  down  to  in  the  execu- 
29* 


342  THE  PLATFORM. 

tion  of  their  exciting  rhetoric.  And  this  is  as  it 
should  be.  What  makes  oratory  is  life ;  it  must  be 
top-full  and  brimming  over  with  the  warm,  instant 
life  of  the  present  moment ;  —  you  cannot  conjure 
with  dead  men's  jaws  on  that  field  of  invocation : 
the  passions,  the  habits,  the  humors,  the  history  of 
the  hour  should  all  be  seen  in  phrases,  words,  and 
figures,  reflected  back  upon  the  people  in  the  mirror 
of  the  oration  ;  for  the  orator  of  popular  effect,  "  the 
people's  candidate,"  charms  us  who  listen  by  often 
saying  just  what  we  think,  in  a  more  public  and 
pungent  way  than  we  could ;  and  as  the  murmur- 
ing feeling  of  the  thought  sways  through  the  crowd, 
ebbing  and  flowing  from  one  to  another  and  each  to 
all,  every  one  feels  his  own  idea  more  earnestly  than 
before  ;  and  the  life-giving  expression  of  the  speaker 
echoes  back  to  him  in  the  hurrahs  of  multitudinous 
approbations.  We  do  not  mean  that  the  orator 
should  be  the  exact  counterpart  of  the  audience  and 
no  more ;  for  if  he  were  only  so,  there  would  be  no 
progress.  He  must  be  before  them,  in  object ;  his 
drift  and  purpose  should  be  something  improving 
and  much  in  advance  of  them ;  but  his  machinery 
to  get  them  to  it  must  be  abreast  of  them  ;  it  must 
consist  of  thoughts  which  touch  home  and  touch 
hard.  In  this  respect  he  only  is  the  successful  one 
who  is  indeed  the  mouthpiece  of  the  multitude, — 
"  the  very  glass  and  mirror  of  the  time."  One  of  the 
best  similes  for  its  special  object  that  Chapin  ever 
used  was  a  flashy  allusion  to  the  dandyism  of  the 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  843 

day,  in  the  half-acre  plaids  and  railroad  stripes  of  a 
buckish  merchant's  pantaloons. 

Both  these  speakers  also  gain  material  from  an 
equally  fond  and  appreciating  love  of  Nature.  To 
them  both  "the  mighty  mother  unveils  her  peerless 
face,"  and  from  the  countless  voices  of  her  harmony 
Nature's  bright  thought  is  sung  to  them ;  the  elo- 
quent woods  in  their  repose  and  silence  are  audible 
to  them,  with  thought-quickening  tones  not  heard 
by  men  of  grosser  mould  ;  for  their  natures,  by  a  sin- 
gular felicity,  are  almost  as  fine-strung  and  soft-keyed 
as  if  they  dallied  with  the  Muses  by  direct  profes- 
sion, and  set  themselves  up  to  be  nothing  but  poets. 
"  But  eloquence,"  says  the  philosopher,  "  lies  neigh- 
boring to  poetry,"  and  therefore  with  the  sunlit 
boundary,  at  least,  of  that  fair  region,  all  excellent 
orators  should  be  familiar  ;  and  we  have  heard  these 
disciples  of  hers  descant  in  language  floral  with  the 
whole  imagery  of  Nature  ;  as  if  the  silver  threads  of 
her  crystal  waters,  gliding  across  green  fields,  had 
woven  silver  chains  around  their  minds  of  an  ex- 
clusive allegiance  to  her. 

But  nobody  can  love  Nature  without  finding  their 
matter  of  thought  and  of  discourse  fed  and  nour- 
ished abundantly  by  her;  and  many  things  which 
these  devotees  of  natural  charms  have  said,  reveal 
an  Italian  sense  of  beauty  lurking  under  a  Yankee 
great-coat.  Sun  and  sky  and  stars  feed  their  urns 
of  thought ;  and  sometimes,  in  few  but  magic  words, 
they  summon  up  so  clear  and  crystalline  a  view  be- 


344  THE  PLATFORM. 

fore  the  mind,  it  seems  a  cameo  of  nature,  tinted  from 
the  rainbows  and  carved  upon  the  sky.  We  should 
hazard  little  in  attributing  to  them  a  boyish  liking 
for  all  sorts  of  sports  in  the  open  air ;  for  long  walks 
in  lonely  places,  the  little  overshadowed  crannies  in 
glistening  currents  where  the  speckled  trout  lurk  from 
the  sultry  heat,  or  on  the  wave-resounding  shores  of 
the  sea,  where  the  great  ships  move  gloriously  on. 

But  not  from  the  ware  of  nature  only  do  they 
draw  matter  for  oratorio  manufacture ;  an  exhaust- 
less  native  Fancy,  often  attaining  the  sphere  of  imag- 
ination, gives  them  great  power  to  describe,  to  en- 
force, or  to  invent  themes  of  discourse.  This  power 
of  fancy  colors  and  gives  tone  to  all  they  say.  They 
are  not  often  called  upon  to  go  through  dry  and  long 
matters  of  business  before  many  auditors,  as  law- 
yers are ;  but  even  if  they  were,  this  faculty,  as  they 
have  it,  would  warm  up  even  those  dull  details,  and 
give  them  life.  The  dryest  bones  of  facts  and  fig- 
ures must  start  up  and  take  shape,  if  the  real  orator 
bid  them  live  again ;  and  no  subject  is  utterly  im- 
practicable, even  for  a  mixed  audience,  under  the 
adorning  touch  of  this  talent.  By  that  art  the  busi- 
ness of  discourse  is  made  insinuating,  or  agreeable ; 
the  plain  fabric  of  familiar  thought  is  shot  with  the 
shining  tissues  of  fanciful  notions,  or  colored  and  re- 
lieved with  the  strong  glare  of  illustrative  imagina- 
tions. Beecher's  "  Star  Papers"  and  Chapin's  "Lec- 
tures to  the  Youth  of  New  York,"  as  well  as  their 
direct  forensic  efforts,  are  full  of  evidence  of  their 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  345 

possession  of  these  abilities.  Indeed,  their  fanciful 
qualities  are  so  efflorescent,  that  sometimes  they  suf- 
fer their  Imagination  to  step  out  from  her  subordinate 
place  as  the  accessory  of  their  spirited  reasonings, 
and  take  the  first  place  in  prominence ;  they  forget 
that  with  the  poet  alone,  Imagination  is  the  mis- 
tress ;  with  the  orator,  she  is  only  the  handmaid. 
For  to  oratory  the  idealizing  gifts  ought  always  to 
be  servient,  never  dominant;  servants,  not  masters. 

But  although  thus  rivalling  each  other  in  fruitful- 
ness  of  fancy,  there  are,  nevertheless,  marked  differen- 
ces to  be  observed  between  them,  even  in  this  fancy ; 
and  these  must  be  closely  noticed  to  gain  any  clear 
notion  of  their  separate  individuality.  For  although 
uncommonly  alike  in  a  great  many  things,  —  their 
hardy  robustness  of  mind  and  build,  the  abundance 
of  their  fancy  and  their  idolatry  of  nature,  —  yet  in 
all  the  imaginative  and  impulsive  qualities  which 
peculiarly  give  character  to  oratory,  their  diversities 
seem  to  us  marked. 

We  think  Chapin  moves  in  a  higher  sphere  of  or- 
atorio fancies,  and  in  that  sphere  his  place  is  loftier. 
Fancy  is  quite  enough  for  any  orator,  but  he  often 
touches  the  plane  of  Imagination.  He  has,  too, 
more  sustained  gravity  and  grandeur  than  his  com- 
peer. He  is  often  solemn  and  deep-toned  as  an 
apostolic  envoy  ;  speaking  as  we  may  imagine  Paul 
the  Apostle  to  have  spoken,  when  he  shook  King 
Agrippa  on  his  throne ;  while  Beecher  is  changing 
in  his  mood,  now  grave,  now  gay;  letting  his  fan- 


346  THE  PLATFORM. 

cies  and  his  impulses  run  riot  with  him ;  more  like 
the  speaker  of  the  caucus  or  the  darling  of  the  gal- 
lery in  the  theatre.  Both  carry  away  their  hearers  ; 
but  with  Beecher  it  is  often  by  energetic  and  odd 
thoughts  ;  while  Chapin  has  a  sublimity  of  utterance 
upon  sacred  themes,  and  an  elevation  of  mind  which, 
in  its  best  flights,  sweeps  up  the  audience  to  its  own 
commanding  level,  by  willing  sympathy,  not  by 
submissive  obedience.  There  is  more  wildness  in 
Beecher,  more  composure  in  Chapin ;  his  is  the 
rocket's  calm  sweep  into  the  sky,  —  strong,  steady, 
straight  up,  piercing  the  zenith ;  Beech er's  course 
of  thought  is  lower  and  more  level,  but  more  start- 
ling and  clamorous ;  more  like  those  serpent  fire- 
works which  rush  zig-zag  close  over  our  heads  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  —  tearing  about,  distracting  the 
gaze,  and  forcing  one's  notice  of  their  fiery  march. 
Beecher  is  an  ornamentalist.  He  decorates  his  rhet- 
oric, but  hardly  attains  that  copious  amplification 
which  gives  eloquence,  not  so  much  its  force  as  its 
enchantment;  but  he  has  vigor  and  home-thrusts 
and  beauty,  so  far  as  it  may  minister  to  force ;  not 
with  silken  words,  but  with  sledge-hammer  syllables 
he  sends  home  his  thoughts.  He  is  more  sharp  and 
unsparing  than  Chapin  in  his  dissections  of  adverse 
views  and  men ;  especially  when  "  cutting  up  a 
Pharisee,"  as  he  terms  his  denunciations  of  hypoc- 
risy, either  in  or  out  of  the  Church ;  his  sentences 
then  are  as  bright  as  a  bowie-knife.  He  deals  much 
more  in  the  terrors  of  revelation  than  his  coadjutor. 


CHAPIN   AND   BEECHEB.  347 

We  do  not  think  he  prefers  to  do  so,  but  he  deems 
it  his  duty  to  enforce  the  Bible  as  he  understands  the 
Bible ;  and  as  he  stands  erect  in  his  great  "  Church 
of  the  Pilgrims,"  in  Brooklyn,  breathing  out  threat- 
enings  and  slaughter  upon  the  evil-minded,  he  often 
gains  an  eminence  of  godly  eloquence  not  unworthy 
to  be  compared  with  the  marvellous  Blind  Preacher 
of  Virginia ;  whom  William  Wirt  described  as  rising 
with  climaxes  of  adjuration,  —  till  he  seemed  "to 
shake  one  world  with  the  thunders  of  another." 

Beecher  seems  to  be  more  springy  and  elastic  in 
his  mind,  as  well  as  body,  than  his  friend  and  rival. 
Fowler  the  phrenologist  said  that  he  had  extraordi- 
nary muscular  springiness,  a  sort  of  resiliency  like  a 
rebounding  football;  and  through  all  he  says,  one 
feels  a  hearty  heave-ahoy  swing  of  impulsive  influ- 
ence. 

He  is  very  free  and  easy  in  his  whole  pulpit  style. 
What  the  Methodists,  we  believe,  call  "  having  free- 
dom" in  speaking  is  abundantly  exemplified  in  him. 
He  could  not  be  more  at  home  at  his  dinner-table 
than  he  is  at  his  sacred  desk.  Bold,  reckless,  and 
defiant,  he  stands  up  in  his  pulpit,  and  rattles  off 
everything  that  comes  into  his  head ;  but  he  is  al- 

,  ways  large-souled  and  liberal.     No  man  ever  hears 
him  utter  any  little  sneaking  text  of  creed ;  all  is  on 

j  too  broad  and  bountiful  a  scale  in  him ;  breadth  and 
cordiality  and   ardor  and   a  general   impression  of 

:  power   are  everywhere   apparent,  —  it  is  as  if  the 
breath  of  the  great  prairies,  where  his  first  manhood 


348  THE  PLATFORM. 

was  passed,  swept  through  his  dare-devil  periods. 
He  is  a  man  of  leonine  temperament.  He  seems, 
too,  a  very  brave  man.  Whether  he  is  so  or  not  we 
do  not  know.  Some  bold  word-mongers  are  chick- 
en-hearted. We  believe,  however,  that  he  would  do 
what  he  thought  his  duty ;  like  Luther  proclaiming 
the  truth  in  the  streets,  if  necessary,  although  "  the 
tiles  of  the  houses  were  so  many  devils."  He  seems 
to  say  to  all  comers  and  all  combatants,  "  I  am  the 
champion  of  the  truth  ;  if  you  doubt  it  —  come  on  ! " 
That  sturdy  reformer  of  decaying  Christianity,  Mar- 
tin Luther,  used  to  say  to  the  meeker  spirits  around 
him,  "  I  was  born  to  fight  with  devils  and  storms, 
and  hence  it  is  that  my  composition  is  so  boisterous 
and  stormy."  There  never  was  a  man  in  America 
who  might  with  more  propriety  say  the  same  thing 
than  the  Puritan  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  His  out- 
bursts might  sometimes  be  condemned  by  prudes, 
sitting  at  the  dreadful "  Areopagus  of  the  tea-table  "  ; 
but  they  would  startle  sinners,  standing  on  the  con- 
fines of  damnation. 

An  account  was  recently  published  in  a  newspa- 
per of  his  riding  with  the  engineer,  on  a  locomotive, 
across  the  far  prairies  of  the  West.  Nobody  but 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  would  ever  have  thought  of 
that ;  that 's  just  a  picture  of  his  orator-course ; — on  it 
goes,  whirling,  trampling,  spitting,  blazing, — scream- 
ing as  it  "  lets  off  steam  "  in  good  hearty  indignation, 
—  grumbling  as  it  "breaks  up"  at  a  cadence  "sta- 
tion," —  and  careering  with  a  conqueror's  air  all  the 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  349 

time.  If  this  man  had  not  been  a  fiery  orator,  he 
should  have  been  a  locomotive  driver ;  for  a  fire-king 
of  some  kind  he  was  born  to  be. 

He  does  not  invariably,  however,  exert  his  power 
in  the  energetic  style.  He  prefers  to  move  by  the 
express-train,  which  carries  fuming  threatenings  and 
flashing  pictures  as  its  freight ;  but  he  can  sober 
down  to  the. accommodation-trains,  filled  with  quiet 
thoughts,  fairy-like  fancies,  and  reposeful  contem- 
plations. A  lecture  of  his,  very*  well  known,  upon 
"  Beauty,"  abounded  in  touches  of  purity  and  sweet- 
ness of  passion.  "  The  humble  workman  who  cul- 
tivates a  love  of  pictures  and  prints,  and  sunsets  and 
bird-songs,  is  wealthier  than  the  golden-girdled  lord- 
ling,"  he  exclaimed,  —  a  true  and  beautiful  sugges- 
tion. 

But  whether  moving  in  tranquillity  or  in  fury,  all 
his  descriptions  of  beauty  have  nevertheless  a  rough 
and  ragged  edge.  For  he  abounds  in  contrasts  vio- 
lent, unexpected,  and  undignified,  —  and  therefore  ef- 
fective ;  sudden  surprises  and  suspendings  of  voice, 
and  paradoxes  of  thought,  changes  of  level  and  qual- 
ity of  tone  as  violent  as  the  intonation  of  Edwin 
Forrest  in  the  Gladiator.  His  thought  seems  to 
move  in  shocks  rather  than  sentences,  and  the  inter- 
val between  is  often  filled  up  by  the  auditors  with 
inextinguishable  laughter.  When  surging  along  in 
some  grand  diapason  of  deep-souled  indignation,  he 
will  break  down  into  a  cutting  but  coarse  jest,  very 
telling,  but  marring  the  harmonious  whole;  as  if  some 
30 


350  THE  PLATFORM. 

Grecian  fa$ade,  spreading  before  us  in  well-disposed 
proportions,  serene  and  stately,  should  bear  across 
its  marbled  front  a  broad  streak  of  red  paint,  shaped 
into  a  fantastic  device  to  catch  the  eye  of  the  ground- 
lings. These  anti-climaxes  are  wonderfully  effective 
with  the  mass ;  but  they  belong  to  the  mob-orator, 
not  to  the  eloquent  artist,  —  he  who  loves,  or  ought  to 
love,  his  art,  as  Raphael  loved  his  Madonnas',  these 
abrupt  transitions  are  designed  to  startle  the  atten- 
tion, but  they  shock  the  mind  ;  over  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  refined  mind  they  throw  a  perfect  wet  blanket; 
the  spirit  taught  by  good  taste,  and  elevated  by  con- 
genial sympathy  with  the  rapt  imaginings  of  the 
orator  "  in  a  fine  frenzy  "  playing,  comes  down  to  a 
vulgar  level,  by  no  gradation  of  descent,  —  it  is  a 
precipice,  and  down  it  goes.  So  might  we  fancy  the 
rapt  soul  of  Milton  to  have  been  startled  but  shocked, 
had  the  grave  organ,  which  solaced  the  hours  of  the 
composition  of  his  Songs  of  Paradise,  burst  from  its 
high  movement  of  lament  over  Israel,  into  some 
hurdy-gurdy  polka ;  or  in  default  of  that  (since  even 
Charles's  court  may  have  been  innocent  of  that  in- 
vention of  the  enemy),  had  fallen  into  a  jig  fit  for 
Nell  Gwynne  to  laugh  at. 

These  artificial  anti-climaxes  are  not  fit  for  the 
first-class  orator,  who  trains  himself  to  please  all 
classes  of  the  people.  They  make  at  best  a  start- 
ling, jerky,  convulsive  style  of  speaking,  —  a  sort  of 
epileptic-fit  style  of  oratory,  which  astonishes  the 
hearer  into  attention.  And  therein  we  cannot  help 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  351 

considering  Chapin  to  excel  Beecher ;  he  is  not  for 
one  class  any  more  than  another :  he  is  for  the  whole 
company,  the  big  boys,  the  little  boys,  and  men ;  the 
unwashed,  the  intelligent,  the  man  of  cultivated 
thought ;  his  fervent  earnestness  will  attract  a  mind 
too  ignorant  fully  to  follow  him,  while  again  the 
most  improved  mind  will  find  it  worth  while  to  keep 
him  company.  He,  too,  has  great  vehemence,  but 
he  has  more  uniform  dignity  and  evenness  of  move- 
ment. He  sweeps  you  into  his  train  with  a  long, 
steady  swing ;  he  does  not  startle  your  life  out  with 
impetuous  jerks.  In  short,  there  is  more  sublimity 
in  Chapin,  there  is  more  feverish  and  spasmodic 
vigor  in  Beecher. 

But  to  see  Beecher  in  his  glory,  behold  him  cheer- 
ing on  what  he  invokes  as  "  the  columns  of  Free- 
dom." See  him  covering  the  platform,  as  in  pres- 
ence of  the  thousands,  struggling,  almost  choking, 
with  the  defiance  and  the  prophecy  of  Liberty,  he 
obtests  Heaven  against  slavery  in  America ;  denoun- 
cing those  whom  he  thinks  its  props,  and  anticipating 
with  rapture  the  morning  when  the  blackness  of  that 
darkness  shall  all  be  rolled  away ;  then  his  tones 
breathe  out  clarion-notes  of  defiant  exultation,  his 
whole  being,  moral,  mental,  and  physical,  is  agitated, 
and  in  the  ecstasy  of  the  moment  he  shouts  out  his 
eloquent  gladness.  Then  you  behold  him  one  mass 
of  fiery  sensibility ;  a  sort  of  poet,  philosopher,  and 
madman  all  fused  into  one  —  orator ;  sparkling  with 
all  the  mercurial  vivacity  of  the  Frenchman  igno- 


352  THE   PLATFORM. 

rant  of  any  feeling  but  the  joy  of  the  moment,  yet 
solemn  with  all  the  conscious  responsibility  of  the 
thoughtful  leader  of  men's  destinies. 

Although  Beecher's  oratory  is  more  inconstant 
and  vagrant  than  Chapin's,  yet  he  is  nevertheless 
more  literary  in  his  character.  Indeed,  the  vagrancy 
of  his  thought  in  speaking  would  even  parallel  the 
description  of  John  Randolph's  oratory  in  Congress, 
where  it  was  wittily  said,  that,  if  his  mind  was  a 
map,  the  line  tracing  the  connection  of  his  thoughts 
would  look  like  the  scattering  tracks  of  a  retreating 
army.  But,  despite  this  tendency  to  deviation, 
Beecher  is  decidedly  the  better  writer,  and  he  exerts 
much  active  influence  by  his  vigorous  pen.  His 
productions  read  better  than  Chapin's.  He  shows 
more  versatility  and  originality  of  resource  and  topic. 
Chapin  does  not  seem  to  us  to  have  any  literary 
merit  at  all  commensurate  with  the  effect  of  his  lec- 
tures and  sermons.  The  gulf  between  his  printed  and 
his  spoken  matter,  even  when  they  are  the  same  to 
the  eye,  is  wider  even  than  it  was  with  Henry  Clay's 
oratory.  Except  in  times  of  revolution,  the  greatest 
fame  of  eloquence  is  not  often  attained  without  a  per- 
sonal alliance  with  literature  in  some  way  on  the  part 
of  the  orator.  Either  by  works  of  the  pen,  which, 
independent  of  his  oratory,  are  contributory  to  his 
renown,  or  by  written  and  revised  speeches,  which 
will  bear  reading.  Of  contemporary  repute  of  elo- 
quence, Chapin  and  Beecher  gain  as  wide  a  share 
as  is  now  possible,  without  this  permanent  alliance 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  353 

of  literature.  Chapin,  it  is  said,  lectures  four  or  five 
times  a  week  through  the  whole  winter  to  admiring 
lyceums  and  public  bodies  at  $  50  per  night ;  while 
in  a  recent  lecturing  tour  through  the  Western  and 
Middle  States,  Beecher  had  a  regular  agent  to  go 
before  and  make  "arrangements"  for  his  speaking  in 
successive  towns ;  as  if  he  were  a  newly  imported 
European  lion. 

Neither  of  these  orators  are  what  would  be  called 
"  correct " ;  their  thoughts  never  stagnate  in  frigid 
mannerism  ;  their  sentences  never  go  to  sleep  in  their 
prim  propriety ;  their  thoughts  flash  into  periods, 
and  the  periods  cannot  always  wait  for  the  rule  and 
compass  of  the  schools ;  the  strict  logical  sequence, 
the  trained  refinement  of  diction,  the  choice  variety 
of  paraphrase  and  expression,  the  academic  manner, 
—  nothing  of  the  kind  shall  we  see.  Many  other 
speakers,  too,  are  more  harmonious  in  the  mere 
quality  of  their  tones,  flowing  with  that  milky  rich- 
ness, that  lactea  ubertas,  which  the  classic  orators  so 
much  desiderated.  Chapin,  however,  is  much  more 
rhythmical  and  musical,  as  he  is  more  ideal  and  airy 
in  his  rhetoric,  as  well  as  lofty  in  his  sublimities. 
He  has  always  an  air  of  culture,  of  strong  native 
powers  taught  in  the  schooling  of  the  academic  grove, 
though  not  trained  into  scholastic  regularity.  Beech- 
er has  an  untutored  earnestness  and  a  certain  rude- 
ness of  thought  and  uncouth  lordliness  of  manner, 
on  a  high  but  practical  theme ;  something  like  what 
fancy  might  conceive  an  old  Visigoth  leader,  rallying 
30* 


354  THE   PLATFORM. 

up  his  barbarian  bravos.  If  we  liken  his  field  of 
thought  to  the  irregular  spreading  and  tangled  for- 
est, —  then  Chapin's  province  is  to  be  compared  with 
the  broad  domain  of  an  English  park,  whose  natural 
growths  of  towering  woods  are  all  left  standing 
in  their  pride,  untrimmed  and  uncut,  belted  with 
smooth-pressed  lawns  and  checkered  with  gay  flow- 
ers,—  the  statues  of  Beauty  guarding  the  paths,  the 
encircling  wall  of  green  embracing  the  most  charm- 
ing nature,  perfected  by  the  most  attractive  art. 

There  is  more  of  the  spirit  of  fun  in  Beecher,  and 
he  utters  more  side-shaking  conceits,  though  Chapin 
says  funny  things,  too,  but  then  he  gets  them  off 
with  the  air  of  a  philosopher  stooping  to  folly. 
Beecher,  it  must  be  admitted,  sometimes  rants ; 
Chapin  rarely,  if  ever,  does  so.  His  good  taste  pre- 
serves him  in  great  measure  from  that  excess.  Nor 
do  either  of  them,  as  a  general  thing,  cant  in  their 
exhortations ;  a  sound,  healthy  theology,  fit  to  live 
by,  as  well  as  to  die  by,  animates  their  harangues  ; 
they  are  too  healthy-minded  and  honest-hearted  to 
fall  into  the  sickly,  milk-and-water,  morbid  pietism 
which  would  starve  the  life  out  of  the  most  elo- 
quently conceived  periods.  There  is,  indeed,  a  wild 
fanaticism  in  religion  which  is  congenial  to  a  certain 
species  of  bastard  eloquence,  —  a  species  made  up 
of  rant  and  cant  and  craziness.  But  they  have  too 
much  of  the  real  gold  to  use  such  cheap  gilt;  there 
is  too  much  real  power  in  their  grasp,  for  them  to 
lose  themselves  in  a  forcible-feeble  extravaganza. 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  355 

Yet  both  of  them  are  quite  ultra  and  radical 
in  moral  and  humanitarian  movements,  and  feed 
their  oratory  copiously  from  the  topics  and  occa- 
sions kindred  to  such  themes.  If  they  were  in 
politics,  they  would  both,  particularly  Beecher,  find 
themselves  radical  orators  of  the  first  water ;  and 
Beecher  might  possibly  try  his  hand  at  pure  dema- 
gogy. Radicalism  seems  almost  inseparable  from 
the  fervent  oratorical  determination  of  mind.  The 
oratorio  pulse  is  not  suited  to  cool,  calm,  conserva- 
tive, statesmanlike  views  of  things ;  and  hence  it 
happened  that  the  old  Athenian  kings  of  the  Forum 
were,  so  many  of  them,  regular  riot-act  extremists. 
Extreme  views  and  intense  emotions  are  almost 
inevitably  linked  hand  in  hand.  Herein  it  was  that 
Henry  Clay,  whom  we  have  styled  the  foremost  of 
American  orators,  rose  conspicuously  over  all  the 
fervid  spirits  whose  speech  could  for  one  moment 
enter  into  competition  with  his  own ;  that  wise  head 
steered  well  the  rudder  of  his  passion-filled  sails. 
And  Rufus  Choate,  in  all  his  nervous  movements 
upon  the  forensic  race-course,  guides  his  coursers  of 
the  sun  with  the  unerring  evenness  of  a  philosopher 
in  his  study.  What  the  reviewer,  E.  P.  Whipple, 
calls  the  rare  union  of  the  conservative  intellect  with 
the  radical  sensibility,  is  justly  attributed  to  him. 
But  Beecher  and  Chapin,  however  much  they  may 
differ  in  other  things,  and  may  be  superior  or  inferior 
to  each  other  in  many  things,  would  certainly  not 
disclaim  the  title,  gathered  from  their  thoughts,  their 


356  THE   PLATFORM. 

propositions,  and  their  phrases,  of  being  equally 
"  Young  America "  orators  in  the  whole  tone  and 
color  of  their  minds.  Not  that  we  suppose  they 
would  lend  their  painting  phrases  to  varnish  over  the 
fillibustering  schemes  for  which  "  Young  America  " 
has  been  charged  with  an  itching  longing ;  but  gen- 
erally the  impulse  of  the  American  hour,  whether 
it  be  Kossuth,  Temperance,  or  Antislavery,  finds 
them  riding  on  its  top  wave,  racing  onward,  bound 
to  "  pursue  the  triumph  and  partake  the  gale." 

It  follows  from  this  radicalism  of  temper  and  in- 
tellect, and  from  the  light  and  picturesque  variety  of 
their  fabric  of  composition,  that  they  are  eminently 
fitted  to  sway  crowds.  They  are  not  so  well  fitted 
to  persuade  the  individuals  of  that  crowd.  There 
was  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature, 
a  few  years  ago,  who  always  exerted  a  command- 
ing influence  upon  their  votes,  whenever  there  was 
a  large  audience.  Yet  somehow,  no  sooner  did  he 
get  into  a  small  caucus  or  committee-room,  with 
two  or  three,  than  he  found,  to  his  amazement,  that 
he  had  hardly  any  influence  at  all.  Every  proposi- 
tion he  advocated  was  voted  down.  The  truth  was, 
he  was  a  mob  speaker  by  nature.  The  magnetism 
of  the  multitude,  which  his  voice  and  manner  roused, 
supplied  the  want  of  solid  thought  and  statesman- 
like views. 

The  test  of  oratory,  however,  it  cannot  too  often 
be  repeated,  is  success.  It  is  not  correct  composi- 
tion, nor  solid  thought,  except  as  these  conduce  to 


CHAPIN  AND  BEECHER.  357 

success.     When  it  was  told  to  Edmund  Kean  that 

Lord  ,  in  the  boxes  of  the  theatre,  applauded 

him,  "  What  do  I  care  for  that,"  said  he,  with 
a  true  appreciation  of  the  object  of  his  art,  "  the 
pit  rose  at  me?"  Tried  by  the  test  of  success 
with  the  multitude,  these  men  have  no  peers  in  the 
pulpit. 

Both  of  them  are  true  natural  orators,  of  clearly 
pronounced  type.  They  never  can  have  seen  a 
period  in  their  mental  development  at  which,  after 
sage  reflection,  they  came  to  the  conclusion  that  an 
orator  was  a  great  intellectual  phenomenon,  and 
that  thereupon  they  should  proceed  to  apply  success- 
fully large  general  powers  to  the  specific  cultivation 
of  oratory,  as  is  the  case  with  some  speakers.  Nature 
bade  them  speak,  when  she  hung  their  tongues  for 
them  ;  they  would  have  spoken  if  they  had  never 
done  anything  worthy  to  be  called  thinking.  If 
their  tongues  were  padlocked,  they  would  suffocate 
with  their  emotions.  Naturally,  spontaneously,  and 
inevitably  they  must  have  spoken.  They  are  not 
rhetoricians  in  their  mood  any  more  than  in  their 
style  ;  not  distinctively  intellectual  orators,  —  plat- 
form spectacles  of  the  supremacy  of  brain  over 
body,  —  like  Chancellor  D'Israeli  in  Parliament,  or 
Charles  Kean  on  the  stage,  or,  on  a  grander  scale 
than  either,  Lord  Brougham  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
They  are  temperament  orators ;  that  is,  their  intel- 
lectual gifts  are  subordinate  to  their  physical  gifts. 
In  the  same  way  as  was  exemplified  conspicuously 


358  THE  PLATFORM. 

by  "  Father  Gavazzi,"  the  ex-priest  of  Rome,  who 
created,  a  year  or  two  ago,  so  much  sensation  in 
England  and  America.  His  predominance  of  tem- 
perament was  so  powerfully  manifested  in  his  looks 
and  tones  while  speaking,  that  he  engaged  the  in- 
terested attention  of  large  English  audiences,  al- 
though he  spoke  in  a  tongue  unintelligible  to  most 
Of  them,  —  the  Italian.  The  appropriateness  of  his 
dramatic  action,  or  rather  of  his  gesticulation,  the 
music  and  power  of  his  voice,  the  picturesque  novel- 
ty in  his  attire,  and  the  dignity  of  his  personal  ap- 
pearance, told  almost  as  well  as  if  his  audience 
could  follow  the  meaning  of  his  words.  For  six 
months  he  attracted  London  audiences,  composed 
of  all  classes,  to  listen  to  and  admire  him.  At  last, 
like  Kossuth,  (though  far  less  successfully,)  he  taught 
himself  English.  But  though  their  temperament 
power  is  thus  predominant,  yet  you  could  not  meet 
either  of  them,  as  poor  Goldsmith  said  of  Edmund 
Burke,  under  a  shed  in  a  rain,  without  feeling  in  fif- 
teen minutes  that  you  were  talking  to  a  man  of  true 
command  of  language,  and  of  those  minor  thoughts 
which  make  expression.  You  would  feel  that  you 
had  met  a  champion  tongue-driver ;  unless,  indeed, 
you  yielded  unconsciously  to  his  sway,  and,  without 
perceiving  the  influence,  surrendered  to  the  power. 

And  herein  is  their  characteristic ;  they  are  natu- 
ral orators  well  cultivated.  A  natural  orator  needs 
cultivation  to  bring  forth  all  his  energies,  just  as  a 
race-horse  needs  training  to  put  forth  his  most 


CHAPIN   AND   BEECHER.  359 

astonishing  feats.  Occasionally  only,  there  comes 
out  an  "  Eclipse  "  on  the  platform,  as  well  as  on  the 
turf,  who,  without  discipline,  distances  everything 
by  unparalleled  native  superiority.  Such  an  one 
was  William  Wirt's  Patrick  Henry ;  we  say  Wirt's 
Henry,  for  whether  Wirt's  Henry  was  the  Henry 
that  Virginia  saw,  and  nothing  more,  we  have 
always  mistrusted  ;  that  eloquent  fulmination  which 
drove  the  bishops  off  the  bench  in  the  county  court- 
house, —  to  the  amazement  no  less  of  Patrick's  fa- 
ther and  the  multitude  of  Patrick's  friends,  than  of 
Patrick  himself,  —  we  have  always  thought  too  sud- 
den and  too  theatrical  a  sweep,  even  for  his  youth- 
ful genius.  But  Chapin  and  Beecher  are  undoubt- 
edly gainers  by  effort  and  observation.  We  have 
heard  those  who  have  been  familiar  with  them  from 
the  start  say,  that  a  vast  stride  in  advance  is  ap- 
parent in  each  of  them,  since  one  harangued  in 
Amherst  College,  and  the  other  preached  righteous- 
ness to  the  people  of  Richmond,  in  Virginia. 

Both  of  them  give  the  lie  to  the  modern  cant,  that 
eloquence  cannot  be  pre-composed,  but  is  extem- 
pore. As  if  the  prince  of  the  Athenian  Bema  did 
not  plume  himself  on  his  "  got  up  "  Philippics,  pre- 
pared to  the  minutest  particular,  with  every  i  dotted 
and  every  t  crossed ;  and  as  if,  in  recent  days,  Ers- 
kine's  and  Brougham's  and  Webster's  outbursts  were 
not  most  carefully  worked  up,  —  yea,  in  a  single 
instance  (Queen  Caroline's  defence)  thirteen  times 
corrected.  Why !  we  have  ourselves,  in  a  little  bub- 


360  THE   PLATFORM. 

ble  of  patriotic  effusion  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  com- 
pletely misled  a  critical  hearer  into  the  declaration, 
"  Well,  that  was  surely  extempore  " ;  whereupon  the 
MSS.,  almost  word  for  word,  has  been  produced 
from  the  ambush  pocket,  and  brandished  provok- 
ingly  in  his  surprised  eyes.  But  say  the  advocates 
of  frothy  and  tumid  extemporaneousness,  (for  that  is 
what  unprepared  effusions  almost  inevitably  come 
to,)  "  the  utterer  of  pre-written  thought  is  not  up 
with  the  time ;  he  is  not  in  unison  with  his  audi- 
ence ;  he  is  thinking  of  the  topics  of  his  study,  not 
yielding  to  the  impulses  of  the  instant ;  he  is  the 
man  of  yesterday,  not  the  man  of  the  moment." 
Ah,  but  there  lies  the  power ;  to  take  the  prepared 
paragraphs,  the  wood  set  in  order,  and  right  there 
before  the  people,  to  light  it  up  with  the  meteor 
spark  of  their  own  native  fires,  with  bright,  cordial, 
immediate  heat  for  all  sorts  of  minds.  Sometimes 
the  unpremeditated  escapade  of  speech  may  work 
wonders,  but  generally  off-hand  speaking  will  be 
flat,  —  reeled  off  like  Rosseau's  prescription  for  a 
love-letter  :  "  Begin  without  knowing  what  you  are 
going  to  say,  and  leave  off  without  knowing  what 
the  deuce  you  have  said."  Beecher  sometimes  goes 
off  in  unprepared  tangents  of  eloquent  rapture,  bal- 
looning into  regions  of  sentimentality,  but  soon  gets 
back  into  the  neigborhood  of  the  "  hard  pan  "  of  his 
prepared  thought ;  and  Chapin  still  more  rarely  flies 
off  from  his  copy.  Certainly  his  periods  have  the 
look  of  painstaking. 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  361 

Both  of  them,  when  well  prepared,  give  off  those 
telling  little  sentences,  half  imagery  and  half  essen- 
tial thought,  which  have  as  much  meaning  and  force 
compressed  into  them  as  an  ordinary  mind  would 
dribble  through  a  dreary  page,  —  phrases  which  break 
out  of  the  beating  heart  of  genius,  like  the  flash  from 
the  thunder-cloud.  They  never  make  the  shallow 
blunder  of  supposing  that  the  best  eloquence  is  the 
extempore  eloquence.  "  What  I  call  my  best  passa- 
ges," said  Curran,  "my  white  horses,  I  have  all 
ready  beforehand."  Dr.  Chalmers,  the  renowned 
Scotch  preacher,  is  related  to  have  spoken  with  such 
amazing  vigor  and  passion,  that  he  was  sometimes 
all  but  in  a  trance  himself,  as  the  auditors  hung  en- 
tranced upon  his  words.  During  those  moments, 
his  friends  seriously  feared  apoplexy,  such  was  the 
rush  of  blood  to  his  head,  the  veins  on  his  forehead 
distended,  his  brows  so  knit,  and  the  muscles  of  his 
neck  standing  out  like  whipcord.  Afterwards  he 
would  sink  on  a  sofa,  and  for  an  hour  or  two  restor- 
atives were  obliged  to  be  applied  to  him.  This  was 
a  great  orator.  Yet  the  budgets  of  thunderbolts  he 
hurled  with  such  exhausting  energy  were  all  most 
carefully  prepared  and  put  together. 

Both  of  these  men,  when  fully  warmed  up,  have 
much  of  that  supremacy  of  mood  which  domineers 
with  its  own  proud  despotism  over  men's  minds; 
something  of  that  supremacy  which  once  in  a  while 
actors  have  been  able  to  assert  in  their  ideal  charac- 
ters of  the  hour.  When  Betterton  played  Hamlet 
31 


362  THE  PLATFORM. 

to  Booth's  ghost,  his  horrified  stare  at  his  father's 
apparition  so  disconcerted  and  overcame  Booth,  he 
forgot  his  cue,  and  could  not  speak  his  part.  On  the 
Senatorial  boards,  it  is  well  known  how  Chatham's 
lightning-look  quelled  Mansfield  without  argument. 
Yet  we  would  not  be  carried  by  any  enthusiasm  of 
description  to  the  extent  of  attributing  to  our  imme- 
diate subjects  the  wondrous  powers  of  these  histori- 
cal marvels ;  but  we  assert  that  they  have  the  same 
power  in  kind,  though  not  in  equal  degree.  It  is 
not  a  single  man,  whom  they  cow  or  still :  it  is  the 
many-headed  mass,  over  whom  they  wield  their 
tongue-tyranny.  And  after  all,  mob-eloquence  is 
thought  by  some  to  be  the  highest  exertion  of  the 
faculty,  —  to  quell  the  "fierce  democracie,"  and  give 
those  proud  waves  laws ! 

There  is  one  great  charm  about  both  these  speak- 
ers, which,  from  the  fact  that  they  are  so  rapid  in 
speech,  would  be  liable  to  be  unnoticed  or  unrecog- 
nized, though  its  agreeable  effect  would  always  be 
felt.  Rapid  fervors,  if  they  have  free  play,  always 
fall  naturally  into  a  sort  of  rhythmical  utterance, 
amounting  on  impassioned  passages  almost  to  a 
chant;  and  to  one  listening  carefully  suggest  the  idea 
of  an  utterance  more  lofty  than  natural,  and  alto- 
gether out  of  the  common  beat.  But  it  will  be 
found  on  close  observation,  —  and  here  is  the  charm 
which  we  mean,  —  that,  no  matter  how  large  the 
audience,  they  both  speak  invariably  from  a  conver- 
sational level ;  no  matter  to  what  degree  of  pathos  or 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHEE.  363 

of  bathos  they  go,  they  maintain  conversational  ca- 
dences and  talking  inflections  of  voice.  It  is  incredi- 
ble how  much  ease  and  relief  to  the  hearer,  and  how 
much  advantage  to  the  speaker,  this  produces :  the 
ear  of  the  one  is  never  strained  by  an  uninterrupted 
hammering  of  sound,  while  the  tongue  of  the  other 
is  never  parched  with  its  unbroken  wagging;  and, 
what  is  of  no  less  consequence,  this  colloquial  modu- 
lation prevents  the  stilted  mannerism  into  which  all 
inexperienced  speakers  are  sure  to  fall ;  because  they 
suppose  that  speaking  to  an  audience  must  be  some- 
thing very  much  more  magnificent  than  speaking  to 
a  man ;  just  as  the  half-bred  actor  thinks  acting  to 
be  something  so  entirely  different  from  real  life,  that 
the  stage  must  never  see  him  guilty  of  a  natural 
movement  or  an  off-hand  reading.  And  so  the  roar- 
ers on  the  Platform  caricature  eloquence  in  their 
endeavor  to  do  something  startling,  —  and  in  that 
sense  they  succeed ;  for  by  the  inflammation  of  their 
manner  and  their  matter  both,  they  keep  the  hearer 
trembling  in  doubt  as  to  which  will  give  out  first  in 
the  speaker,  —  his  brain  or  his  blood-vessels. 

A  great  deal  of  their  composition,  as  we  have 
already  hinted,  in  speaking  of  the  fugitive  and 
scenical  character  of  their  word-visions,  is  utterly 
ineffective  to  be  quietly  read.  It  is  piled  up  in  a 
perfect  four-story  style  of  rhetorical  architecture; 
and  nothing  but  the  immediate  impression  of  the 
accompanying  passion  could  carry  anybody  along 
with  them  up  its  staircases. 


364  THE  PLATFORM. 

But,  with  all  their  merits  and  their  faults,  they 
are  twin  children  of  Calliope ;  the  wreaths  of  the 
Muse  of  Eloquence  are  woven  for  their  brows  by 
the  admiring  million;  the  gold  and  glory  which 
only  a  republic  gives  to  eloquence  are  given  to 
them ;  —  and  there  they  stand,  faithful  servants  of 
God,  crying  aloud  and  sparing  not;  —  there,  on 
either  side  of  the  rushing  river  which  rolls  by  the 
wharves  of  the  mighty  capital  of  the  commercial 
West ;  fast  anchored  there,  like  two  repeating  frig- 
ates volleying  forth  their  echoing  broadsides  to  each 
other,  against  the  sins  of  the  Babylonic  city. 

Chapin,  on  the  whole,  is  more  impressively  pas- 
sionate ;  Beecher,  more  variedly  interesting  and  ve- 
hement; though  Chapin's  vehemence,  it  must  be 
allowed,  is  sometimes  extraordinary.  We  recollect 
a  conversation  with  a  gentleman  of  the  first  schol- 
arly repute  in  New  England,  who  could  appreciate 
his  glowing  thoughts,  but  could  not  quite  manage 
his  violence.  He  spoke  about  sitting  next  him  at  the 
NewT  England  festival,  two  or  three  years  ago,  at  the 
Astor  House  in  New  York ;  and,  said  he,  "  When 
Chapin  got  fairly  astride  of  the  Pilgrims,  I  thought 
he  'd  shake  me  all  to  pieces."  But  generally  sub- 
limity, and  energy  as  far  as  conducive  to  that  result, 
predominate  in  his  address ;  and  we  have  heard  him 
as  gentle  as  a  maiden's  music  in  his  tender  tones ; 
then  the  mother  in  him  looked  out  from  his  eyes ;  and 
then  into  such  loving  measures  did  his  great  voice 
glide,  we  could  not  help  thinking  what  sweet  mor- 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  365 

sels  of  consolation,  dropping  like  little  dew-drops 
right  down  into  the  mourning  heart,  must  be  found 
amid  his  agitating  exhortations. 

One  Sunday  morning  we  had  walked  a  weary 
brace  of  miles,  in  a  broiling  sun,  to  hear  him ;  he 
talked  upon  the  quality  of  love  in  the  Divine  Being; 
his  talk  was  grand,  —  it  was  tremendous,  yet  it  was 
tender  and  loving  in  its  tone  as  a  child's  recognition 
of  a  father's  benedictions.  With  vast  emphasis  he 
rose  to  the  climax,  "  God  never  will  abandon  you" ; 
and  as  he  pronounced  the  emphatic  "never,"  he 
made  it  for  the  moment  the  master-thought  of  the 
world  to  every  one  who  heard  him.  And  then  for- 
tifying his  assertion  by  a  glittering  astronomical  ar- 
gument, he  continued,  "  From  all  the  outposts  of  the 
sky,  science  brings  back  the  watchword,  —  God  is 
Love."  And  finally  he  crowned  a  piled-up  perora- 
tion, describing  the  Saint's  future  progress  in  Divine 
affection,  by  a  glorious  outbreak :  "  But  however  high 
you  mount,  or  however  grand  your  deified  glory, 
you  '11  never  get  beyond  the  simple  utterance,  — 
'  We  loved  him,  because  he  first  loved  us.'"  And  as 
he  ejaculated  the  closing  clause,  his  whole  broad 
face  gleamed,  his  eyes  were  lifted  up,  his  lips  parted 
in  smiles,  and  visions  of  beatific  ecstasy  seemed  glid- 
ing o'er  his  mind. 

What  a  triumph  of  Christian  liberty  it  would  be, 

if  this  man,  with  his  prodigious  physical  energy,  the 

vast  volume  of  his  voice,  his  enthusiasm  of  thought, 

and  his  apparent  apostolic  fervor,  could  preach  in  the 

31* 


366  THE  PLATFORM. 

Flavian  Amphitheatre  at  Rome!  —  if  he  could  see 
that  Pagan  temple,  canopied  over  in  the  forms  of  a 
Christian  architecture ;  and,  standing  beneath  the  lit- 
tle cross  which  marks  the  centre  of  the  vast  circle, 
could  speak  in  a  cosmopolitan  language,  the  lesson 
of  that  Cross  to  emancipated  Italy  rising  around  him 
in  the  enormous  tiers  of  the  Colosseum,  rank  upon 
rank,  to  the  skies!  The  Italian  dungeons,  at  this 
moment,  hold  victims  of  liberal  sentiments  numerous 
enough  to  sjive  him  or  any  Christian  a  colossal  audi- 

•/ 

ence,  whenever  he  can  speak  there  unchallenged  by 
a  sentinel  and  unmenaced  by  a  Pope.  What  bat- 
tle-canvas in  the  wide  world's  warrior-gallery  would 
equal  the  historic  picture  of  such  a  scene  as  that ! 

On  the  occasion  of  the  sermon  to  which  we  have 
referred,  we  were  particularly  struck  with  the  sono- 
rous richness  of  his  low  tones,  and  the  modulations 
and  cadences  maintained  in  his  most  impassioned 
ejaculations.  They  were  perfectly  preserved  with 
deliberate  beauty,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  uproar  of 
his  almost  intemperate  ardor ;  and  though  his  voice 
roared  and  resounded  till  the  echoes  rang  again, 
there  was  no  impression  left  upon  the  mind  of 
noisiness  or  din ;  —  no  impression,  for  instance,  like 
what  a  worthy  country  minister  once  declared  was  the 
legacy  of  a  rampant  revival  preacher,  who  occupied 
his  pulpit  for  "one  day  only."  "Why,"  said  the 
good  man,  "my  church  walls  echoed  for  a  week 
after  he  'd  gone."  His  vast,  voluminous  tones  were 
frenzied  with  passion,  but  lyrical  with  beauty. 


CHAPIN   AND  BEECHER.  367 

We  have  heard  Chapin  speak  like  a  foreboding, 
menacing  prophet,  and  again,  in  a  changed  strain, 
when  he  seemed  like  a  mourning  seer  bidding  the 
daughters  of  Jerusalem  "  Weep  not  for  these  things, 
but  for  your  sins  and  sorrows  " ;  but  we  never  heard 
him  say  anything'  for  popular  effect  unworthy  of 
the  rostrum,  wherever  it  was,  upon  which  he  was 
standing. 

Upon  all  he  says  is  impressed  the  stamp  of  genu- 
ine uprightness  and  burning  eagerness  for  high  ob- 
jects. Not  at  all  to  him  would  apply  the  character 
of  old  attributed  to  the  talkers  of  Athens,  by  the  sar- 
castic Aristophanes  in  a  mood  worthy  of  the  cynical 
Diogenes  in  his  tub ;  for  he  said,  "  The  orator  is  a  man 
gifted  with  a  voice  like  seven  devils,  bora  a  scamp, 
and  naturally  able  to  pull  wires."  This  tricky,  dem- 
agogic art  and  insincerity  is  nowhere  shown  in  all 
his  ambitious  race  for  oratoric  standing. 

He  unites  happily  the  airy,  ornate,  and  decorative 
style  with  the  harder  style  of  greater  solidity  of 
meaning.  Sometimes  his  thought  will  float  through 
long-winding  corridors  of  sentences,  —  paragraphs 
which  rise  before  us  in  light  and  lofty  beauty  like 
Saracenic  tracery ;  —  again,  passion  will  pack  his 
thought  into  a  period  which  will  come  thump  against 
the  object  with  cannon-ball  momentum;  and  then 
alas  for  the  man  whose  notions  are  the  target  of  his 
frenzied  invective,  —  they  will  fly  into  pieces,  as 
gates  of  Arabian  architecture  before  a  catapult! 
There  is  an  air  of  richness  and  of  nobleness  flung 


368  THE   PLATFORM. 

over  his  thoughts  by  his  utterance,  far  beyond  what 
they  themselves  bear  out.  Merely  to  listen  to  him, 
your  eye  and  ear  might  lead  you  to  suppose  that  you 
had  fallen  on  the  days  of  the  Elizabethan  masters  of 
rich  massive  thought,  who  wove  in  large  designs 
their  lofty  dreams,  like  sumptuous  tapestry,  —  but 
plain  printer's  ink  would  soon  dispel  that  illusion. 
And  yet  (finally,  to  resume  our  comparison  of  the 
two  preachers)  he  gives  more  lustre  to  his  composi- 
tions than  Beecher,  while  Beecher  utters  more  hard- 
headed  sense  and  gives  more  hard-hitting  blows 
with  his  words.  Both  can  brandish  the  rhetorician's 
tools ;  but  when  one  hurls  the  thunderbolt,  it  is  the 
bare,  black  bolt;  when  launched  by  the  other,  it  is 
wreathed  with  the  splendors  of  lightning. 

The  English  boast  much  of  their  preachers,  —  the 
late  Edward  Irving,  and  the  living  though  youthful 
Spurgeon.  We  incline  to  believe  these  famous  men 
would  be  found,  if  they  could  be  set  side  by  side, 
not  superior  to  these  reigning  orators  of  the  Ameri- 
can Pulpit  in  our  day.  England  is  not  nationally 
eloquent.  Americans,  who  have  heard  Spurgeon,  are 
not  fascinated  with  any  genius  in  him  but  that  of 
honest  zeal.  Englishmen,  on  the  contrary,  upon  hear- 
ing our  Chapin,  have  expressed  positive  amazement. 
They  declare  the  phenomena  of  himself  and  his  style 
to  be  to  them,  absolutely,  a  new  revelation.  It  is 
probable  that  for  the  eloquence  which,  based  wholly 
on  power  of  temperament,  is  at  the  same  time  great- 
ly invigorated  by  careful  culture,  Chapin  and  Beech- 


CHAPIN  AND   BEECHER.  369 

er  stand  now  at  the  head  of  the  world's  list  of  eccle- 
siastical orators.  We  have  heard  priests  in  Italy, 
vociferating  in  the  chapels  of  the  Basilicas,  with  the 
same  impulse  of  passionate  energy,  but  with  far  less 
refinement  of  manner  and  voice,  and  far  less  eviden- 
ces of  educational  accomplishment.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  multitudes  here  and  abroad,  whose 
sermons  read  better  than  anything  these  sermon- 
izers  have  produced.  But  considering  them,  not 
as  literary  talkers  or  academicians,  but  as  orators, 
they  command  the  highest  seats  in  the  world's  syna- 
gogue. 

It  is  pleasant  in  this  business  age  to  see  approach- 
es to  real  eloquence  in  any  career  of  practical  life. 
The  charlatanry  of  story-telling  and  ranting  bluster  so 
often  pass  current  for  the  genuine  article  of  oratory, 
and  gain  great  praise,  that,  on  the  public  platforms 
of  every  kind  as  on  the  dramatic  scene,  there  is 
hardly  any  premium  on  real  oratoric  excellence,  as 
distinguished  from  boisterous  and  rapid  rant.  Emi- 
nent names  in  American  eloquence,  in  all  walks 
in  which  eloquence  can  be  shown,  our  country  has, 
as  we  have  seen  already,  written  on  her  bead-roll ; 
men  who  have  got  to  their  excellence  by  an  inborn 
love  and  an  inborn  ideal  of  what  real  excellence  in 
speaking  is ;  these,  in  all  their  variety,  (for  they  dif- 
fer widely  even  when  equally  successful,)  we  never 
hear  without  delight ;  as  we  never  hear  them  either, 
without  the  image  rising  in  fancy  of  that  superb  ideal 
of  Eloquence,  which  retreated  for  ever  even  before 


370  THE  PLATFORM. 

the  advancing  strides  of  the  consummate  rhetoric  of 
Antiquity.  These  only  are  the  "  great"  orators,  who 
rule  the  senses  and  the  souls  of  men,  as  the  moon 
rules  the  tides  of  the  sea. 

£> 

WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

THERE  are  three  men  in  Boston  whose  mere  ora- 
tory, independent  of  their  subject,  will  always  fill  a 
house,  —  Rufus  Choate,  Edward  Everett,  and  Wen- 
dell Phillips.  Of  these,  and  of  all  those  mentioned 
in  this  volume,  Wendell  Phillips  is  the  only  "  Boston 
Boy."  He  belongs  to  an  ancient  and  highly  respect- 
ed family  in  Boston,  and  with  the  city  so  distin- 
guished for  revolutionary  devotion  to  national  free- 
dom all  his  earliest  and  deepest  associations  are 
linked.  He  is  a  Platform  speaker  exclusively.  He 
has  no  learned  profession.  He  studied  law,  but  nev- 
er practised  it.  This  was  fortunate,  perhaps,  for  his 
eloquence ;  for  had  he  devoted  himself  to  it  closely 
and  ambitiously,  its  natural  tendency  would  have 
been  to  cramp  and  harden  his  mind.  Many  of  the 
dryest  English  lawyers  to-day  are  men  who  were 
marked  for  scholarly  and  general  taste  and  enthusi- 
asm at  the  universities;  but  who  have  lost  both  in 
their  rigorous  devotion  to  the  austere  specialities  of 
the  bar.  "  To  succeed  at  the  bar,"  wrote  William 
Wirt  to  a  young  aspirant,  "  you  must  toil  terribly, 
work  like  a  Conestoga  wagon-horse."  The  pack- 
horse  and  the  blood-racer  are  of  different  blood ;  the 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  371 

work  of  the  one  hardens  the  muscles  and  kills  the 
soul  of  the  other.  Rufus  Choate  and  Pinkney  are 
the  two  Americans  who  have  best  exhibited  the 
wonderful  combinations  of  the  fine-grained  enthusi- 
asms and  the  hard  athletic  understanding.  Henry 
Clay  never  devoted  himself  to  law  with  any  exclu- 
sive assiduity.  Phillips  did  hardly  more  than  mas- 
ter its  scope  and  the  course  of  its  reasonings,  —  a 
little  Blackstone  and  no  Coke.  He  has  no  Pulpit, 
any  more  than  he  has  a  Forum,  for  his  oratory.  He 
has  a  Platform,  and  nothing  but  a  Platform.  In  the 
position  which  most  men  take  occasionally,  in  polit- 
ical campaigns  or  in  special  excitements,  he  is  seen 
standing  permanently  —  upon  the  front  of  the  Plat- 
form. He  has  no  business  but  one,  no  object  but 
one,  —  that  is  the  American  slave ;  as  the  man  said 
who  was  taken  up  as  a  vagrant,  he  "  practises  the 
abolition  business."  As  all  the  world  knows,  his 
theme  is  Opposition  to  Slavery. 

The  Antislavery  agitation  has  not  developed  so 
much  intellectual  talent,  as  it  has  force  of  character 
and  moral  enthusiasm.  Enthusiastic  eloquence  is 
its  natural  growth.  It  is  the  natural  stimulus  of 
their  annual  excitement.  They  seek  a  revolution. 
Eloquence  is  the  flame  of  revolutions.  In  the  French 
Revolution  eloquence  furnished  all  the  go-ahead  pow- 
er required,  till  the  guillotine  supplanted  the  tribune 
by  furnishing  a  keener  excitement  to  the  scarlet  Red 
Republicans.  Among  all  these  enthusiasts,  Phillips 
takes  the  lead ;  but  he  is  also  a  brilliant  man  intel- 


372  THE   PLATFORM. 

lectually.  He  is  by  far  the  most  brilliant  orator  in 
every  way,  intellectually,  passionately,  and  artisti- 
cally, thrown  up  by  the  Abolition  excitement.  It 
can  hardly  be  said,  indeed,  that  he  is  thrown  up  by 
this  particular  excitement ;  for  his  talents  would  have 
led  him  to  eminence,  nay,  to  far  higher  eminence, 
without  it.  It  has  fed  his  excitable  qualities  with 
fresh  fuel  and  kindled  his  oratory,  but  it  has  weighed 
him  down  in  the  race  for  this  world's  honors  with 
the  pull  of  the  millstone  on  the  neck.  In  the  well- 
known  volume  of  the  "  Hundred  Boston  Orators," 
this  unrivalled  but  unpopular  speaker  is  absolutely 
ignored.  Profound  moral  conviction  only  could 
have  directed  and  confined  so  interesting  and  so 
cultured  a  mind  to  his  unpopular  cause.  Herein 
is  the  mainspring  of  his  oratory;  deep,  impassioned 
moral  conviction.  He  knew  when  he  began  that 
the  world  was  against  him,  that  society  puts  him 
and  his  coadjutors  under  the  ban ;  but  he  accepted 
the  challenge,  and  defied  the  New  England  com- 
mercial civilization  of  to-day.  He  appeals  from 
to-day,  to  the  hereafter  of  "  men's  better  thoughts." 
He  felicitously  said  recently,  "  I  project  my  thoughts 
from  the  back  of  a  century." 

This  is  very  bold,  and  it  is  very  great.  Even  his 
enemies  must  respect  him  for  this  honest  moral 
audacity.  In  his  case  there  can  be  no  doubt  of 
the  honesty.  Some<[5men  there  are,  doubtless,  at 
once  of  slender  capacity  and  mounting  ambition, 
who  rush  into  a  small  rank,  which  is  always  in 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  373 

excitement  and  which  numbers  few  eminent  minds, 
to  gain  notoriety  and  conspicuousness.  But  any 
generous  adversary  will  deny  with  ardor  such  im- 
putation upon  Wendell  Phillips.  Born  as  he  was 
with  social  and  natural  gifts,  his  road  of  glory  lay 
bright  before  him.  If  he  turned  from  it,  he  turned 
deliberately;  he  well  knew  he  was  thenceforth  to 
hear  the  taunt  of  suspicion  and  odium,  nor  ever- 
more the  pealing  voices  of  renown. 

He  is  a  natural  orator.  He  is  highly  cultivated 
by  art,  more  highly  than  most  of  his  admirers  sus- 
pect ;  but  he  is,  to  begin  with,  a  natural  speaker.  He 
gives  pleasure  to  others  in  hearing  him,  because  in 
speaking  he  gives  pleasure  to  himself;  this  is  the 
distinction  between  a  fine  art  and  a  useful  art,  — 
the  creator  in  the  former  must  be  happy  in  his  work 
to  do  it  successfully,  but  the  laborer  in  the  latter 
may  labor  in  pain  with  equal  prosperity.  When  he 
was  twelve  years  old,  he  made  his  first  schoolboy 
declamation  in  the  old  Latin  school-house  in  School 
Street,  in  Boston  ;  an  old  and  endeared  spot,  which 
many  men  who  have  since  become  distinguished  in 
various  walks  will  well  remember.  A  youth  who 
himself  afterwards  attained  glory,  but  died  too  soon, 
listened  to  him  then  with  such  interest,  that  he 
emphatically  declared  his  conviction,  "  That  boy  will 
be  an  orator."  And  now,  from  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Connecticut,  the  lecture  audiences 
are  echoing  the  acknowledgment,  —  that  boy  is  an 
orator.  No  lecturer  who  journeys  from  the  Mer- 
32 


374  THE  PLATFORM. 

cantile  Library  lecture-room  of  Boston  to  the  St. 
Louis  lecture-room  commands  more  hushed  atten- 
tion from  all  the  intervening  audiences.  On  his 
own  specialty,  and  on  all  topics,  he  is  the  orator. 
His  harp  has  a  thousand  strings,  though  he  is,  of 
course,  greater  when  he  touches  the  chords  that 
thrill  to  his  own  heart  with  the  deepest  and  dearest 
associations. 

It  is  idle  to  deny  to  such  a  man  the  credit  of  hon- 
esty ;  the  old  martyr  spirit.  He  who  does  deny  it, 
shows  either  his  own  littleness  or  his  own  ignorance. 
It  is  plain  that  his  path  in  New  England  and  Amer- 
ica would  have  been  one  of  splendor,  had  he  been 
willing  to  take  "  the  nearest  way."  Many  circum- 
stances show  that  he  might  have  assumed  a  com- 
mand in  New  England  from  the  start,  and  after  the 
death  of  Webster  might  have  led  New  England.  For 
his  mind  is  constituted  to  sympathize  cordially  with 
ideas  and  sentiments.  New  England  is  more  prac- 
tically governed  by  ideas  and  abstract  sentiments 
than  any  other  portion  of  the  country.  Plymouth 
Rock  is  an  embodied  sentiment.  The  true  "  Yankee 
notions "  are  the  Yankee  sentiments.  The  intelli- 
gent traveller  who  journeys  from  New  England  in 
almost  any  direction  into  the  country,  will  hardly  fail 
to  perceive  the  lessening  force  of  abstract  ideas  and 
thoughts  as  he  goes -forward.  Interests,  hard,  sordid, 
vulgar,  —  embodied  in  institutions,  names,  monopo- 
lies, —  he  wiU  perceive  usurping  control  and  com- 
manding men's  actions.  But  here  in  New  England 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  375 

the  idealist,  if  balanced  with  common  sense,  reigns. 
Phillips  has  at  once  idealism,  eloquence,  scholarship, 
and  warm  popular  sympathies.  He  could  have 
sung  the  "  songs  of  the  poor "  as  well  as  the  songs 
of  the  rich,  in  his  own  oratorical  rhythm ;  and  in 
these  days,  the  great  middle  class  rule  the  land. 
For  the  every-day  representation  of  New  England 
interests  in  Congress,  he  would  have  been  in  some 
respects  better  than  Webster ;  although  to  the  great 
days  on  which  the  history  of  America  has  hinged, 
and  in  which  Webster  rose  to  the  full  exertion  of 
his  gigantic  powers,  he  would  have  been,  of  course, 
unequal.  But  his  oratory  is  of  a  class  to  be  very 
useful  in  every-day  debate.  He  does  'not  have  to 
tool  over  a  piece  of  rhetorical  work  for  days  before 
he  can  be  delivered  of  a  speech.  From  the  charac- 
ter of  the  occasions  upon  which  he  comes  forward, 
he  has  ample  leisure  to  prepare  his  remarks  criti- 
cally; and  this  has,  in  some  degree,  colored  and 
affected  his  prevailing  style.  But  it  is  evident  that 
his  oratory,  though  aided  by  his  composition,  is  not 
dependent  upon  it.  It  is  his  staff,  not  his  crutch. 
He  could  talk  entertainingly  upon  the  subject  of 
"  three  kids,"  without  resorting  to  the  "  slaughters 
of  Cannes  "  for  an  artificial  rhetorical  interest ;  and 
he  could  get  off  debating  speeches  in  Congress,  with 
all  the  ardor,  readiness,  and  felicity  of  Sargeant  S. 
Prentiss  or  Tom  Corwin. 

This  man,  thus  popularly  endowed,  thus  all-accom- 
plished for  the  splendors  of  the  world's  homage,  has 


376  THE  PLATFORM. 

turned  aside  to  a  comparatively  small  band  of  men, 
who  call  themselves  "  Reformers  "  of  the  age.  He 
who  might  have  been  the  favorite  of  New  England, 
upon  whose  shoulders  might  have  rested  the  falling 
mantle  of  Fisher  Ames  and  Harrison  Gray  Otis, 
turned  resolutely  away  from  those  tents  of  Egypt. 
He  joined  in  with  a  party  over  whose  gates  he  saw 
written,  as  far  as  Life's  prizes  are  concerned,  the 
motto  of  the  Inferno :  "  All  hope  abandon  ye  who 
enter  here."  It  is  a  party  which  can  never  triumph 
but  by  making  thirty  millions  of  Americans  believe 
their  Constitution  "a  league  with  Hell,"  and  the 
memory  of  Washington  the  scandal  of  the  land  ; 
and  this  he -knew  when  he  took  post  with  them. 
The  sacrifice  is  indeed  great ;  the  devotion  of  aim, 
mad  as  it  is,  is  to  be  ranked  abstractly  with  the 
loftiest  thoughts  of  men. 

The  word's  best  oratory  undoubtedly  has  always 
been  born  of  Revolutions,  and  therefore  implies  ac- 
tive hostility  ;  but  it  has  been  the  hostility  of  equals, 
—  the  civil  strife  of  parties,  or  a  contention  when  the 
conflicting  forces  were,  if  not  equal,  yet  at  least  high 
powers  of  joint  esteem.  The  Grecian  orator  armed 
and  nerved  Athens  against  the  Man  of  Macedon. 
But  Athens,  then  the  most  cultivated  and  charming 
city  of  the  world,  was  still  behind  him  and  around 
him,  as  he  defied  the  phalanx  of  Philip.  Immortal- 
ity was  before  him,  nationality  was  around  him,  as 
he  bearded  the  barbarian.  Whatever  fate  befell  him, 
whether  poison  in  the  Temple  of  Neptune  or  secret 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  377 

assassination,  —  for  such  a  glory  he  might  well  be  will- 
ing, first  to  speak,  —  then  to  die.  But  no  such  ap- 
plauding city  votes  to  Wendell  Phillips  her  "  Crown 
of  Gold."  After  the  end  of  antiquity,  by  the  ruin 
of  Rome,  the  world  had  few,  if  any,  great  orators, 
till  the  voice  of  France  was  heard  screaming  in  the 
tones  of  Mirabeau.  But  Mirabeau,  till  he  recoiled, 
was  urged  on  and  backed  up  by  the  explosive  pas- 
sions of  ten  centuries,  crowded  into  one  generation 
of  men.  The  gilt  throne  of  Louis  alone  confronted 
him,  the  acclamations  of  millions  of  Frenchmen 
drove  him  on.  But  nobody  except  his  immediate 
sect  sympathizes  with  the  orator  of  the  Antislavery 
Revolution  in  America.  Even  the  Republican  party, 
which  bore  Colonel  Fremont's  name  flying  in  their 
van  at  a  Presidential  election,  repudiates  the  "  rad- 
ical Abolitionists."  And  so  Phillips  stands,  himself 
a  slave,  —  the  slave  of  an  idea ;  socially  proscribed, 
politically  .proscribed,  only  not  oratorically  pro- 
scribed, because  he  is  too  eloquent  to  be  tabooed; 
—  alone,  against  the  organized  civilization  which 
surrounds  him,  —  a  modem  Prometheus  contending 
with  the  Gods. 

But  he  is  confident  that  he  has  a  great  truth  given 
unto  him  to  maintain ;  and  though  all  men  fall  away 
from  him,  and  the  awful  frown  of  America  in  the 
nineteenth  century  scowls  at  him  in  the  background, 
he  appears  unmoved.  In  the  solitude  of  his  own 
convictions  he  dwells  apart,  alone  with  his  brave 
heart,  —  "  the  star  that  looks  on  tempests  and  is  still 
32* 


378  THE  PLATFORM. 

unshaken."  He  said  himself  to  the  people,  in  allud- 
ing in  a  speech  to  the  career  of  some  other  modern 
philanthropists  :  "  You  send  half  round  the  globe,  to 
get  marble  white  enough  to  write  upon  it  the  epi- 
taphs of  the  martyrs  of  the  past,  but  you  make  mar- 
tyrs yourselves  by  the  score."  However  we  may 
differ  from  such  a  man,  we  must  not  refuse  our  hom- 
age to  this  unworldly  loyalty  to  "  the  higher  law." 
Such  men  stand  out  in  history  from  dreary  pages  of 
the  names  of  selfish  demagogues  or  bloody  captains. 
Their  influence  is  not  limited  by  their  own  day  and 
their  own  land.  It  beats  on  with  victorious  pulse,  and 
vibrates  beyond  their  country  to  all  humanity.  As 
Grattan  said  of  Fox,  "  You  are  to  measure  the  mag- 
nitude of  such  a  mind  by  parallels  of  latitude." 

It  is  peculiarly  important  fully  to  understand 
Phillips's  character  and  position,  in  undertaking  any 
attempt  to  comprehend  the  orator  Phillips.  The 
eminent  quality  of  his  oratory  is  moral  power.  He 
always  sneers  at  every  argument  based  on  men's 
vulgar  interest,  and  challenges  their  immortal  senti- 
ments and  their  innate  principles.  What  patriotism 
was  to  Clay,  what  the  "  cause"  on  trial  was  to  Pink- 
ney,  what  religion  is  to  Beecher,  —  that  is  "  aboli- 
tion "  to  Phillips.  It  penetrates  and  permeates  his 
whole  being.  It  invigorates  every  hour  of  his  life. 
It  sharpens  every  sentence  he  composes,  and  colors 
every  tone  he  breathes  forth.  He  was  recently  in- 
vited to  deliver  a  lecture  before  a  literary  audience, 
which  had  heard  all  his  old  lectures  on  the  "  Lost 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  379 

Arts,"  the  "  Street  Life  of  Europe,"  &c.,  and  was 
asked,  therefore,  how  much  he  would  charge  to  de- 
liver a  new  lecture  before  them,  upon  some  theme  of 
general  and  polite  interest.  He  replied,  naming  a 
very  high  sum  ;  but  added,  that  if  they  would  let  him 
speak  on  Slavery,  he  would  come  for  nothing,  and 
pay  his  own  expenses.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  he 
was  allowed  to  go ;  and  he  afterwards  told  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Association  that  he  really  seemed  to 
himself,  to  have  lost  all  interest  in  anything  outside 
of  the  cause  of  which  he  was  the  advocate. 

This  vast  moral  fountain  of  eloquence  must  be 
considered  his  fundamental  capital  as  a  speaker. 
Yet  this  alone  could  not  make  a  man  an  orator. 
Theodore  Parker  and  Garrison,  who  are  of  the  same 
school  with  Phillips,  are  not  orators ;  they  are  good 
speakers  merely.  The  old  maxim,  "Poeta  nascitur, 
orator  fit"  cannot  be  true.  For  as  certainly  as  poets 
are  born  to  their  fine  frenzies,  so  also  is  the  orator 
born  to  his  commanding  moods,  and  his  captivating 
periods.  But  Phillips,  having  the  oratoric  build  and 
temper,  is  inspired  by  this  one  grand  source  of  emo- 
tion. The  firmness  and  warmth  of  this  conviction 
supports  and  exalts  his  soul  at  its  ordinary  level,  into 
the  grandeur  of  martyrdom. 

If,  then,  the  reader  would  see  the  play  of  the  ma- 
chinery fed  by  these  fires,  if  he  would  hear  Phillips 
speak,  he  should  not  go  to  any  of  the  fashionable 
assemblages  of  the  day ;  not  to  the  great  Halls  where 
the  crowds  habitually  shout  the  hallelujahs  of  the 


380  THE   PLATFORM. 

American  government,  beneath  the  bannered  arches 
echoing  to  their  shouts;  not  to  gay,  popular  ban- 
quets, where  at  each  plate  flowers  blush,  plumed 
Beauty  nods  applauses  from  the  galleries,  and  proud 
music  crashes  on  the  orator's  kindling  soul ;  nor 
should  he  go  to  the  great  street  gatherings,  where 
transparencies  shine  and  trumpets  sound ;  but  let 
the  observer  of  "  Reformers  "  turn  in  to  some  out-of- 
the-way  "  Fair  "  ;  a  place  where  a  few  well-meaning 
but  mistaken  men  and  women  are  gathered  together 
to  gain  a  little  "  material  aid  "  for  their  great  moral 
objects  ;  or  let  him  go  to  the  grove  of  woods,  where, 
on  the  anniversaries  of  successive  Emancipations,  a 
few  men,  devotees  of  their  thought,  abandoning  all 
hope  of  direct  political  power,  meet  under  the  clouds 
of  heaven  ;  in  what  would  appear  to  others  hopeless 
discouragement,  but  cheered  by  the  spirit  of  soul-felt 
belief;  like  the  spirit  of  the  early  Christians,  running 
together  out  of  sight  of  the  frown  of  the  prince,  in 
the  tombs  of  the  imperial  Capital.  They  move  with 
the  march  of  martyrs,  —  the  fire  of  conscience  is  in 
their  hearts,  the  spirit  of  conquerors  blazes  in  their 
eyes.  We  may  utterly  dissent  from  all  their  theo- 
ries and  all  their  suggestions ;  but  we  must  admire 
their  hardy  heroism,  their  calm  intrepidity,  braver 
than  the  Hotspur  valor  of  the  six  hundred  cavaliers 
who  charged  at  Balaklava  ;  and  we  must  admit  that 
if  any  power  could  stir  and  crack  the  crust  of  society, 
the  resolute  and  tenacious  power  here  embodied 
might  upheave  it.  Well  might  their  leader,  the  Ar- 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  381 

chimedes  in  moral  engineering,  exclaim,  "  Give  me 
but  a  fulcrum,  and  I  will  move  the  world."  There  is 
the  place  to  see  Wendell  Phillips,  for  upon  that 
Platform  only,  he  is  "  at  home." 

After  several  explosive  speakers  have  fired  off 
their  indignation,  you  would  see,  if  you  went  thither, 
a  calm,  quiet,  gentlemanly-looking  person  take  the 
stand.  This  person,  except  for  the  general  hush  of 
all  before  him,  you  would  not  suppose  conscious 
of  any  internal  power,  nor  able  to  produce  any  ex- 
ternal effect.  There  is  nothing  in  the  form,  face,  or 
carriage  very  significant,  except  a  bright,  knowing 
eye,  at  times  sparkling  with  a  wicked  look,  as 
though  its  owner  meant  mischief.  His  figure  is 
lithe  and  slim.  He  is  of  the  sanguine  tempera- 
ment, blonde  in  complexion ;  and  light-brown  hair, 
slightly  sandy.  His  whole  address  and  bearing  is 
refined  and  decorous.  His  face  beams  with  an  ex- 
pression of  resolute  goodness,  if  we  may  use  the 
term.  Its  look  is  firm  and  fixed,  while  the  head 
which  surmounts  it  is  roundly  and  neatly  turned 
off,  and  the  forehead,  high,  well-formed,  and  full,  is 
rather  ample  than  otherwise.  It  is  a  Ciceronian 
face  on  a  smaller  scale ;  tapering  to  the  chin,  and 
with  the  forward  perceptive  organs  disproportion- 
ately developed,  and  rather  dwarfing  the  general 
magnitude  of  the  whole  head  taken  together.  But 
there  he  is  before  you,  with  his  frock-coat  buttoned 
up  tightly  round  his  spare  waist,  and  in  easy  atti- 
tude, waiting  to  begin. 


382  THE  PLATFORM. 

When  the  applause,  which  always  heralds  him  to 
an  audience,  subsides,  he  quietly  commences.  His 
address  and  deportment,  so  frank,  so  unpretending,  so 
ingenuous,  you  find  only  anticipates  a  style  of  ex- 
pression, of  equal  simplicity  and  agreeableness.  The 
words  flow  forth  in  a  level,  colloquial  way,  with  a 
rhythm  decided,  but  not  forcing  notice  ;  and  for  some 
time  after  he  begins  he  produces  a  pleasing  rather 
than  an  impressive  effect  upon  the  hearer.  Occa- 
sionally, either  a  passage  of  concentrated  bitterness 
breaks  the  flow  by  a  sarcastic  sharpness  of  cadence, 
or  a  pointed  description  relieves  its  monotony.  You 
wonder,  as  you  listen,  where  the  charm  of  which  you 
are  conscious  lies.  You  observe  your  own  ear  to  be 
attracted,  and,  looking  around,  find  every  one  else 
is  also  intent  upon  the  speaker.  After  listening  half 
an  hour,  you  still  are  sensible  of  no  fatigue,  or  any 
involuntary  relaxation  of  attention  ;  and  finally, 
when  with  something  a  little  more  elevated  and  a 
little  more  emphasized,  the  speaker  sits  down,  you 
are  left  in  utter  astonishment  that  this  should  be 
the  oratory  of  the  arch-agitator.  Surely  this  quiet 
man,  this  plausible  reasoner,  this  attractive  person, 
cannot  be  the  most  radical  Abolitionist  orator  of  the 
day  !  Can  he  be  the  dealer  in  forensic  firebrands,  — 
the  man  to  whom  sedition  and  slaughter  are  every- 
day words  !  In  short,  can  this  mellifluous  speaker, 
"whose  tongue  drops  manna,"  and  to  whom  you 
have  listened  for  two  hours,  undistracted  by  tedium 
and  unshocked  by  violence,  can  he  be  the  formida- 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  383 

ble  champion  of  the  hottest  destructives  of  the  day  ? 
Is  this  the  fire-breathing  bull  of  the  Abolition  Ba- 
shan  ?  Yes,  it  is  even  so ;  and  perhaps  Wendell 
Phillips  has  deliberately  cultivated  this  calmness,  as 
an  artistic  contrast  of  the  manner  with  the  matter 
of  his  oratory. 

His  whole  style  is  eminently  his  own.  It  is  very 
plain,  very  straightforward,  very  captivating  ;  never 
putting  you  into  a  perspiration  with  sympathetic 
excitement,  never  cooling  you  off  with  the  frigid  in- 
difference of  a  dealer  in  mere  commonplace.  The 
eye  of  nobody  is  astonished,  the  ear  of  everybody  is 
gained. 

There  are  two  young  men  now  attracting  the 
eye  of  the  country  as  speakers,  by  an  allusion  to 
whose  very  different  manner,  Phillips's  manner  may 
be  illustrated, —  Anson  Burlingame  of  Boston  and 
George  William  Curtis  of  New  York.  These  young 
speakers,  if  put  together  and  boiled  down  into  one 
orator,  would  make — a  Wendell  Phillips.  He  has 
the  suavity,  the  culture,  the  graceful  ease,  the  mod- 
ulated tones,  but  without  the  delicate  voice  of  Curtis ; 
and  he  blends  with  it  the  fiery  self-abandonment  to 
impulse,  which  makes  Burlingame  so  unequal  but  so 
effective  a  speaker.  These  are 

"  Two  wits,  one  born  so,  and  the  other  bred ; 
This  by  the  heart,  the  other  by  the  head." 

In  Phillips,  some  of  the  qualities  of  both  are  em- 
bodied in  one  ;  heart  in  the  breast^  and  brain  in 
the  head. 


384  THE   PLATFORM. 

Such  he  was  when  he  first  came  forward  into  fame. 
He  was  not  thirty,  on  the  day  when  he  made  his 
mark  in  Boston.  It  was  in  the  year  1837,  twenty 
years  ago,  and  in  a  place  in  which  since  then  he  has 
not  been  heard  so  frequently  as  in  other  places.  It 
was  in  that  Boston  Temple  of  Liberty, — to  which  in 
this  volume  we  have  so  often  referred, —  Faneuil  Hall. 
The  subject  of  the  annexation  of  Texas  had  just 
then  been  thrown  before  the  public  mind.  Extreme 
feeling  had  been  enlisted  about  it.  Daniel  Webster 
had  opposed  it.  The  North  were  not  in  favor  of  it. 
The  pulpit  denounced  it.  Even  the  serene  piety  of 
Channing  broke  from  its  accustomed  channels  of 
expression ;  and  the  mildest  and  holiest  divine  of 
his  persuasion  was  seen  entering  the  political  lists 
and  writing  a  great  manifesto  Letter  to  Henry  Clay, 
in  opposition  to  the  proposed  Texan  Union.  Men's 
minds  were  in  an  inflammable  condition  ;  for  that 
Letter,  and  other  public  appeals,  had  opened  a  vista 
of  new  Territories  unbounded,  and  woes  unnum- 
bered as  their  consequence ;  slavery  to  be  indefinitely 
advanced,  and  the  curtain  to  rise  on  scenes  without 
end  of  civil  discord  and  of  foreign  war.  The  "  Gold- 
en State "  had  not  yet  lifted  on  the  horizon  of 
northern  vision,  and  the  annexation  of  Texas  was 
regarded  in  the  North  as  certain  to  break  the  charm 
of  the  Union.  The  Abolitionists  stood  for  once,  as 
since  then  for  once  also  they  have  stood,  side  by 
side  with  the  conservative  North.  The  annexation 
was  postponed. 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  385 

While,  however,  it  still  trembled  in  the  balances, 
another  circumstance  had  occurred  of  bad  omen  for 
New  England,  and  which  added  much  to  the  raging 
excitement.  The  Rev.  E.  P.  Lovejoy,  the  editor  of  an 
Abolition  newspaper  in  Alton,  Illinois,  was  mobbed ; 
his  press  was  torn  to  pieces,  and  he  himself,  while 
he  was  stoutly  defending  his  building,  was  shot 
down  at  his  post.  This  event  sent  a  thrill  along 
the  whole  belt  of  Northern  States.  This  bloody  act 
touched  more  than  the  Abolition  idea:  it  touched 
the  fundamental  and  darling  idea  of  America,  —  the 
freedom  of  the  press.  On  that  freedom  all  our  lib- 
erties depend.  Therefore  it  was  that  a  multitude  of 
persons,  generally  hostile  to  the  Abolitionists,  were 
led  temporarily  to  seem  to  act  with  them.  And 
when  a  meeting  was  called  by  them  in  Faneuil  Hall 
to  denounce  this  outrage,  the  sober  and  moderate, 
the  wild  and  radical  men  of  Boston,  alike  mingled 
together,  and  thronged  the  Hall  of  the  Revolution. 
It  was  a  gathering  of  men,  without  distinction  of 
party,  "  to  consider  the  freedom  of  the  press,  the 
freedom  of  discussion,  and  the  right  of  the  people 
peaceably  to  assemble." 

Never  was  there  a  better  opportunity  for  an 
orator's  debut.  There  was  an  immense  excitement 
acting  upon  an  immense  crowd,  collected  in  a  spot 
hallowed  by  history,  under  circumstances  of  uni- 
versal interest,  and  with  a  deep  and  solemn  anxiety 
pervading  all  breasts.  The  meeting  was  opened 
by  a  clergyman,  who  came  forward  and  knelt  down 


386  THE   PLATFORM. 

upon  the  open  platform,  to  invoke  the  blessing  of 
God  upon  the  hour  and  the  place.  Then  the  mild 
good  minister  came  forward,  whose  writings  and 
memory  his  complete  life  of  piety  have  since  em- 
balmed ;  and  who,  at  that  moment,  commanded  the 
veneration  of  all  good  men  in  as  high  a  degree  as 
it  is  ever  given  to  man  to  do,  —  the  Rev.  William 
Ellery  Channing.  In  a  gentle  but  very  earnest  tone 
he  described  the  object  of  the  meeting,  and  vindi- 
cated it  from  any  aspersions  of  party  purposes. 
He  said  its  object  was,  to  assemble  the  citizens, 
that  by  a  public  act  they  might  help  to  put  down 
civil  convulsion  and  assert  the  insulted  supremacy 
of  the  laws.  He  expressed,  in  concluding,  his  ardent 
expectation  that  the  assembly  would  speak  a  lan- 
guage worthy  of  Boston,  and  worthy  of  the  illus- 
trious men  who  had  made  the  walls  around  them 
echo  with  their  deathless  testimony  to  the  principles 
of  freedom. 

No  one  ignorant  of  Dr.  Channing's  saintly  char- 
acter and  reputation  can  realize  the  force  of  this  ap- 
peal upon  the  people.  Mr.  Benjamin  F.  Hallett, 
who  has  since  become  eminent  in  his  profession  as 
the  United  States  Attorney  for  the  District  of  Bos- 
ton, then  read  the  resolutions  for  the  meeting.  They 
declared  that  ah1  Christians  ought  to  be  roused  by 
an  act  of  cruelty  like  this,  which  degraded  our  coun- 
try to  the  level  of  heathenism ;  but  they  added  that 
the  occasion  was  too  solemn  for  the  language  of 
passion.  These  resolutions  were  supported  by  Mr. 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  387 

George  S.  Hillard,  whose  literary  reputation  has 
since  been  widely  disseminated  by  his  published 
works,  and  by  his  occasional  Addresses.  His  speech 
added  knowledge  and  fervency  to  the  feeling  of  the 
hour.  A  youthful  but  a  chastened  passion  fired  his 
indignant  words.  His  sentiments  elevated  at  once 
and  soothed  the  listening  thousands.  But  he  had 
hardly  resumed  his  seat  when  a  storm  burst  upon 
them.  Attorney- General  Austin  took  the  platform. 
He  was  wholly  averse  to  the  whole  purpose  of  the 
meeting;  and  it  appeared  that  a  large  number  of 
those  present,  dissenting  from  the  general  feeling, 
had  come  there  to  back  his  fierce  words  by  an  active 
co-operation.  With  coarse  and  denunciatory  vio- 
lence, he  declared  that  the  resolutions  were  "cob- 
webs." He  concluded  his  harangue  by  the  bold 
proclamation,  that  the  slaughtered  editor  "died  as 
the  fool  dieth,"  and  that  the  murderous  mob  of  his 
assassins  were  "like  the  Fathers  of  the  Revolu- 
tion." Then  broke  forth  all  the  pent-up  passion  of  the 
times.  Shouts  and  uproar  shook  the  edifice,  while 
alternate  hisses  and  furious  gestures  appalled  those 
who  were  timid  on  the  platform.  As  the  vast  crowd 
surged  back  and  forth  in  its  rage,  Dr.  Channing  sat 
calmly  gazing  on  them,  like  a  being  of  a  superior 
sphere.  All  was  clamor  and  confusion  for  many 
terrible  minutes.  The  first  law  officer  of  the  State 
had  appealed  to  the  lowest  prejudices  of  the  people ; 
and  his  confederates  in  the  audience  were  rallying 
and  thundering  in  aid  of  his  appeal.  The  issue 
seemed  doubtful. 


388  THE  PLATFORM. 

It  can  readily  be  imagined,  from  the  description 
we  have  given  of  the  state  of  things  politically  and 
the  immediate  circumstances  of  the  scene,  how  op- 
portune an  hour  this  was  for  a  real  orator  to  come 
forward,  —  that  was  an  hour,  for  one  who  had  his 
commission  to  speak  written  in  his  very  nature, 
to  "  advance  and  give  the  countersign "  of  his  gen- 
ius; one  who  should  grow  calmer  as  the  tumult 
raged  wilder;  and  who,  while  rising  to  the  fullest 
inspiration  of  the  excitement,  should  command  his 
thought  with  even  a  steadier  precision,  as  the  dis- 
tractions multiplied.  Such  an  orator  there  was,  and 
he  was  on  the  spot. 

A  young  man  whom  few  knew  arose  upon  the 
stage,  and  stood  for  a  long  time  before  the  vexed  sea 
of  heads,  self-possessed,  and  waiting  to  be  heard. 
At  length  an  eminent  and  well-known  merchant  of 
Boston  requested  the  crowd  to  hear  this  youth.  He 
repeated  to  them  his  name :  it  was  the  name  of  Phil- 
lips, —  a  name  they  recognized  as  held  in  long  es- 
teem in  Boston.  At  that  day  names  and  families  had 
much  more  weight  in  the  community  than  they  have 
since  enjoyed,  as  the  city  has  grown  more  demo- 
cratic. An  honored,  hereditary  name  was  worth  a 
dukedom  then,  either  to  an  aspirant  or  to  an  imbe- 
cile. Boston  had  not  then  adopted  the  philosophy 
of  Burns.  She  was  not  ready  to  assert  with  him, 
"  The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp,  the  man  's  the 
gold  for  a'  that."  So  his  family  name  and  his  in- 
troduction, combined  with  his  fine  bearing,  at  last 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  389 

gained  young  Wendell  Phillips  a  hearing.  He  be- 
gan by  calmly  expressing  his  "  surprise"  at  the  sen- 
timents of  the  last  speaker,  —  surprise  at  such  senti- 
ments from  such  a  man ;  but  most  of  all,  surprise 
that  they  should  have  elicited  applause  within  these 
walls.  He  was  vehemently  interrupted;  they  tried 
to  put  him  down ;  but  he  went  on  with  a  rising  and 
equable  ardor  till  he  gained  the  acme  of  his  impas- 
sioned diatribe,  —  raising  his  voice  till  it  rang 
through  the  outer  arches  of  the  now  listening  Hall ; 
and  pointing  his  outstretched  finger  to  the  portraits 
of  the  heroes  of  the  Revolutionary  day,  frowning 
from  the  wall,  he  exclaimed  :  "  I  thought  those  pic- 
tured lips  would  have  broken  into  voice  to  rebuke 
the  recreant  American,  —  the  slanderer  of  the  dead. 
The  gentleman  said"  (here  he  fixed  his  glittering 
gaze  on  Austin)  "  that  he  should  sink  into  insignifi- 
cance, if  he  dared  to  gainsay  the  principles  of  these 
resolutions.  Sir,  for  the  sentiments  he  has  uttered, 
on  soil  consecrated  by  the  prayers  of  Puritans  and 
the  blood  of  patriots,  the  earth  should  have  yawned 
and  swallowed  him  up."  He  spoke  this  as  if  he 
would  dart  lightning  through  his  veins;  and  deaf- 
ening applause  followed  the  daring  appeal.  The 
resolutions  were  at  once  voted  on  and  adopted ; 
and  the  youthful  champion  came  down  from  the 
platform  a  famous  man. 

Upon  none  of  all  that  audience  to  whom  the  spell 
of  his  eloquence  had  been  before  unknown,  was  a 
deeper  impression  made  by  the  speaker  than  upon 
33* 


390  THE   PLATFORM. 

Dr.  Charming  himself.  He  was  long  accustomed  to 
refer  to  the  astonishment  and  delight  with  which  he 
saw  the  youthful  champion  maintain  his  proud  posi- 
tion unshaken ;  in  the  venerable  Hall,  in  presence  of 
a  great  and  divided  concourse,  in  the  midst  of  tu- 
mult and  against  the  frown  of  power.  He  always 
said,  the  spectacle  was  a  vision  of  the  "  moral  sub- 
lime." And  when  it  is  considered  how  appalling  to 
a  youth  the  whole  occasion  was,  we  may  well  agree 
with  him.  The  mere  noise  and  distraction  alone  of 
a  tumultuous  crowd  may  disconcert  even  a  practised 
speaker ;  but  a  novice  will  do  well  if  he  is  not  abso- 
lutely floored  by  it ;  no  notes,  no  desk,  no  aid ;  the 
adventurer  who  tries  that  conspicuous  eminence  un- 
supported by  genuine  genius,  will  be  tempted  to  call 
on  the  very  heavens  to  fall  and  hide  him  from  those 
multitudinous  eyes  ;  those  eyes  which,  to  his  affright- 
ed fancy,  seem  glaring  upon  him  as  if  hungry  for  his 
blood.  But  for  a  mere  youth  not  only  to  sustain 
himself  through  all  this,  but  to  defy  the  man  of  high 
authority,  with  his  party  at  his  back,  and  a  great 
portion  of  the  audience  also  somewhat  affected  by 
his  words ;  to  rise  unknown  and  untrained,  to  beard 
this  veteran  with  victorious  audacity,  and  finally  to 
denounce  him  in  a  swelling  climax,  which  should 
carry  the  house  with  him  in  thunders  of  applause, — 
this  must  have  been  oratory  of  the  first  order.  Be- 
fore such  a  genius  Felix  might  well  tremble,  even  if 
the  Apostle  of  Truth  was  but  a  boy. 

The  circumstances  of  this  first  appearance  were 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  391 

even  more  decisive  of  his  merit,  than  those  which  led 
Erskine  at  a  bound  into  the  affectionate  admiration 
of  England.  Erskine,  it  is  true,  spoke,  though  very 
young,  against  old  legal  counsel,  and  before  the  cel- 
ebrated Chief  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  —  Lord 
Mansfield.  In  the  course  of  his  remarks,  he  in- 
veighed against  the  real  mover  of  the  prosecution 
which  he  was  resisting.  The  venerable  Chief  Jus- 
tice called  the  youth  to  order,  and  informed  him  that 
the  subject  of  his  invective  was  not  before  the  court. 
"  Then  I  will  bring  him  before  the  court,"  was  the 
dauntless  answer,  followed  up  by  an  extempore  out- 
break against  him,  so  spontaneous  and  gushing  that 
it  carried  all  before  it,  and  even  the  grave  judge  was 
silent.  But  Erskine  was  not  opposed  by  men  who 
had  any  personal  interest  in  their  cause,  nor  was 
anybody  present  trying  to  silence  him.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  was  sustained  by  the  feeling  of  the  court- 
room, from  the  first  words  which  fell  from  his  melo- 
dious tongue.  More  than  all,  Lord  Mansfield  him- 
self was  his  personal  friend ;  and  finally  he  had  his 
"  brief"  to  fall  back  upon,  —  an  immense  resource. 

Probably,  taking  all  the  circumstances  in  view,  no 
more  effective  sentence  was  ever  uttered  in  Faneuil 
Hall  than  this  whole  passage  of  Phillips ;  the  refer- 
ence to  the  pictured  lips  breaking  into  speech  to  re- 
buke the  recreant  slanderer,  the  consecrated  Hall, 
and  the  yawning  earth  swallowing  him  up.  It  is 
not  unworthy  to  be  compared  with  Grattan's  splen- 
did passage  in  which  he  inveighs  against  the  apos- 


392  THE   PLATFORM. 

tasy  of  Irishmen  to  Ireland's  sentiments  of  freedom ; 
that  passage  where  he  pictures  the  historian  as  paus- 
ing ere  he  shall  write  the  word  "  Liberty,"  and  de- 
claring that  "  here  the  principal  men  among  you  fell 
into  mimic  trances,  —  they  were  bribed  by  a  corrupt 
government,  and  bullied  by  a  weak  government ;  and 
when  the  Temple  of  Liberty  opened  its  folding  doors, 
and  the  arms  of  the  people  clanged,  and  the  zeal  of  the 
people  encouraged  them  on,  that  they  fell  down  and 
were  prostrated  at  her  threshold."  Phillips,  to  be  sure, 
had  the  grandest  theme  on  earth,  Liberty,  —  liberty  to 
think,  to  act,  to  print,  —  and  on  that  text  the  great  ora- 
toric  sentiments  of  the  world  have  been  enunciated ; 
but  he  rose  to  meet  all  its  terrible  sublimity.  And  this 
outbreak  of  his,  remembering  always  his  immature 
experience  and  incomplete  rhetorical  training,  is  wor- 
thy to  be  placed  with  the  greatest  exclamations  of  the 
famous  Apostles  of  Liberty.  It  recalls  by  similarity  of 
subject,  which  was  general  toleration  of  free  thought, 
and  by  the  instantaneousness  of  its  success,  the  very 
best  utterance  of  Curran.  An  outbreak  of  passionate 
and  rhetorical  splendor  which  signalized,  not  Curran's 
debut,  but  rather  his  meridian  day;  and  which  so 
entirely  carried  away  the  audience  in  the  court-room 
that  it  was  for  a  long  time  impossible  to  silence  them, 
to  clear  the  house,  or  indeed  to  do  anything  else. 
We  mean,  of  course,  his  argument  to  the  jury  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Archibald  Hamilton  Rowan ;  in  which  he 
alluded  to  universal  emancipation,  in  words  about 
England  which  it  is  the  effort  of  Phillips's  life  to  ren- 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  393 

der  applicable  to  America.  "  Gentlemen,"  said  Cur- 
ran,  "  I  speak  in  the  spirit  of  the  British  law,  which 
makes  liberty  commensurate  with,  and  inseparable 
from,  British  soil,  —  which  proclaims  even  to  the 
stranger  and  the  sojourner,  the  moment  he  sets  his 
foot  upon  British  earth,  that  the  ground  on  which  he 
treads  is  holy,  and  consecrated  by  the  genius  of  uni- 
versal emancipation.  No  matter  in  what  language 
his  doom  may  have  been  pronounced,  —  no  matter 
what  complexion  incompatible  with  freedom,  an 
Indian  or  an  African  sun  may  have  burned  upon 
him,  —  no  matter  in  what  disastrous  battle  the  helm 
of  his  liberty  may  have  been  cloven  down,  —  no 
matter  with  what  solemnities  he  may  have  been  de- 
voted upon  the  altar  of  slavery,  —  the  moment  he 
touches  the  sacred  soil  of  Britain,  the  altar  and  the 
god  sink  together  in  the  dust ;  his  soul  walks  abroad 
in  its  own  majesty ;  his  body  swells  beyond  the  meas- 
ure of  his  chains,  which  burst  from  around  him ;  and 
he  stands  redeemed,  regenerated,  and  disenthralled  by 
the  irresistible  genius  of  Universal  Emancipation" 

If  now  we  seek  more  particularly  to  describe  Phil- 
lips, we  should  say,  in  a  word,  he  was  an  orator  of 
artistic  passion.  He  is  rhetorical,  but  not  exactly  a 
rhetorician.  He  has  the  grace  and  often  the  apt  col- 
location of  a  rhetorician,  but  there  is  too  much  fire 
lying  hid  in  his  cadences,  or  jetting  out  in  his  cli- 
maxes, for  pure  rhetoric.  The  primary  idea  of  the 
rhetorician  is  to  persuade  through  mere  pleasure; 
that  of  Phillips  is  to  persuade  through  pleasure  min- 


394  THE   PLATFORM. 

gling  with  passion.  Neither  has  he  any  study  of 
gesture.  He  stands  quietly,  and  in  the  course  of  an 
hour,  no  striking  gesture  of  uncommon  beauty  or 
dramatic  significance  will  appear.  In  no  sense  can 
he  be  called  a  very  demonstrative  speaker.  He 
rather  seems  to  suppress  than  to  express  all  he  feels. 
Thus  he  calls  the  imagination  of  the  hearer  into  play, 
to  aid  the  conception  of  the  idea  which  that  hearer 
feels  him  to  be  struggling  with,  though  he  does  not 
see  the  struggle.  Powerful  as  he  is,  he  has  no  roar 
or  rant  in  his  style  of  address.  It  seems  surcharged 
with  feeling,  with  pathos,  with  indignation ;  and  yet 
one  can  hardly  tell  how  he  distributes  it,  all  is  so 
comparatively  level  and  smooth.  But  whatever 
rhetoric  he  has,  there  is  no  ostentatious  glitter,  no 
schoolboy  rhetoric  there.  When  he  makes  war,  it  is 
no  feint  and  guard  practice,  it  all  means  something ; 
and  this  impression  is  irresistibly  conveyed  to  every 
hearer. 

He  has  the  power  of  breathing  out  tones  which 
wind  their  way  into  men's  hearts  and  heads,  as  if 
they  entered  without  any  noisy  knocking  at  the 
door.  There  is  no  clamor;  but  as  his  audience  go 
away,  they  take  his  thoughts  with  them.  The 
thoughts  will  be  found,  to  borrow  a  Western  phrase, 
to  have  "  got  under  their  hair,"  and  effected  a  fixed 
lodgment  there.  Ole  Bull's  playing  on  his  violin 
illustrates  this  independence  of  any  startling  art  of  , 
execution,  which  belongs  to  a  certain  power  of  fine 
feeling.  What  gushes  of  dreamy  melody  and  ten- 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  395 

der  or  impassioned  impulse,  stole  over  those  inspired 
fiddle -strings !  Yet  Ole  Bull  is  by  no  means  so  ar- 
tistic a  player  as  Sivori.  But  the  magic  of  genius 
is  in  his  bow.  Phillips  is  not  to  be  mentioned  as  a 
mere  rhetorician  with  the  all-accomplished  Everett, 
yet  he  is  a  far  more  natural  orator.  He  has  the  pa- 
thos of  the  heart.  Everett  has  the  pathos  of  the 
head.  When  the  young  Everett,  glowing  with  an 
infinitude  of  life's  hopes,  came  bounding  upon  the 
platform  of  the  Cambridge  Church  to  deliver  that 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  in  which  he  gave  his  wel- 
come to  Lafayette,  he  had  so  estimated  and  weighed 
his  transport  as  to  predict  to  a  friend  that  he  would 
put  that  audience  into  tears,  and  use  up  their  white 
handkerchiefs,  —  and  he  did  it.  But  we  think 
Phillips  could  hardly  calculate  so  nicely  as  that,  on 
the  current  of  his  feelings  or  the  pulses  of  his  pas- 
sion. But  if  he  did  draw  tears,  the  thoughts  accom- 
panying them  would  not  be  so  easily  washed  out  of 
memory  as  the  tears  from  the  cambric.  They  would 
be  tears  that  tingle. 

He  handles  and  throws  out  the  most  stinging  sen- 
tences with  the  most  playful,  easy  air  of  noncha- 
lance ;  —  sentences  that  burn  in  and  leave  a  scar,  — 
sentences  that  sear  the  heart  and  brand  a  man. 
With  the  most  every-day  air  in  the  world,  as  if  no- 
body doubted  about  it,  he  gets  off  such  observations 
as  "  When  Daniel  Webster  declared  to  the  New 
England  States  upon  his  honor  that  there  was  no 
God,"  (by  setting  up  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,)  "  then 


396  THE   PLATFORM. 

a  grand  Salaam  and  prostration  took  place."  When 
he  utters  such  ejaculations  as  "  The  United  States 
Constitution  is  a  covenant  with  Hell,"  he  does  not 
gnash  his  teeth  like  a  modern  Sir  Giles  Overreach, 
as  the  stereotype  agitator  is  presumed  to  do;  no, 
he  is  as  "  bland  as  a  couple  of  summer  mornings," 
as  it  has  been  expressed.  But  the  sentiment  steals 
out  from  his  lips  with  a  calmness  which  is  porten- 
tous ;  a  condensed  concentration  of  meaning ;  the  ac- 
cent of  a  Cassius,  "  who  thinks  o'  nights"  ;  or  a  Rich- 
ard III.,  who  "  smiles,  and  murders  while  he  smiles." 

He  has,  as  may  be  inferred,  sarcasm,  —  a  sarcasm 
not  mocking,  not  ribald,  but  cutting  and  keen  ;  and 
it  derives  new  force  from  the  entire  cordiality  with 
which  it  appears  to  be  given.  He  seems  as  if  he  felt 
so  much,  he  really  could  not  help  expressing  himself 
in  just  that  bitter  way  ;  the  chastisement  was  so 
well  deserved,  he  could  not  possibly  hinder  his 
tongue  from  administering  it.  j 

To  this,  as  to  all  his  means  of  attack,  the  aspect 
of  sincere  conviction  adds  still  more  force.  He  has, 
in  everything  he  utters,  a  tone  which  seems  to  say, 
"  You  may  believe  or  not,  just  as  you  please  ;  if  you 
do  not,  it  will  be  your  loss,  not  mine.  What  I  say 
is  true,  and  the  whole  world  can't  rub  it  out." 

Notwithstanding  this  bitterness  with  which  his 
speeches  are  tinctured,  we  should  judge  him  to  be 
naturally  a  kind-hearted  man,  pervaded  with  genial 
sentiment  and  sweet  feeling.  In  a  late  speech,  he 
gave  this  little  illustration  of  the  value  of  a  single 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  397 

word  from  a  fond  mother ;  and  he  gave  it,  as  will  be 
seen,  with  congenial  appreciation. 

"  I  was  told  to-day  a  story  so  touching  in  reference 
to  this,  that  you  must  let  me  tell  it.  It  is  the  story 
of  a  mother,  on  the  green  hills  of  Vermont,  hold- 
ing by  the  right  hand  a  son  sixteen  years  old,  mad 
with  love  of  the  sea.  And  as  she  stood  by  the 
garden  gate  on  a  sunny  morning,  she  said :  '  Ed- 
ward, they  tell  me  —  for  I  never  saw  the  ocean  — 
that  the  great  temptation  of  the  seaman's  life  is 
drink.  Promise  me,  before  you  quit  your  mother's 
hand,  that  you  will  never  drink.'  And,  said  he,  (for 
he  told  me  the  story,)  I  gave  her  the  promise ;  and 
I  went  the  broad  globe  over, —  Calcutta,  the  Medi- 
terranean, San  Francisco,  and  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  the  North  Pole  and  the  South,  —  I  saw  them 
all  in  forty  years,  and  I  never  saw  a  glass  filled  with 
sparkling  liquor,  that  my  mother's  form  by  the  gar- 
den gate  on  the  green  hill-side  of  Vermont,  did  not 
rise  before  me  ;  and  to-day,  at  sixty,  my  lips  are  in- 
nocent of  the  taste  of  liquor. 

"  Was  that  not  sweet  evidence  of  the  power  of  a 
single  word  ?  Yet  that  was  but  half.  For,  said  the 
young  man  to  me,  yesterday  there  came  to  my  count- 
ing-room a  young  man  of  forty,  and  asked  me,  '  Do 
you  know  me  ?  '  *  No.'  '  Well,  I  was  once  brought 
drunk  into  your  presence  on  shipboard ;  you  were  a 
passenger ;  the  captain  kicked  me  aside  ;  you  took 
me  to  your  berth,  and  kept  me  till  I  had  slept  off 
the  intoxication ;  then  you  asked  me  if  I  had  a 
34 


398  THE  PLATFORM. 

mother  ;  I  said  I  never  knew  a  word  from  her  lips ; 
you  told  me  of  yours  at  the  garden  gate,  and  to-day 
I  am  master  of  one  of  the  finest  packets  in  New 
York,  and  I  come  to  ask  you  to  come  and  see  me.' 
How  far  that  little  candle  throws  its  beams !  O, 
God  be  thanked  for  the  almighty  power  of  a  single 
word !  " 

The  man  who  could  thoroughly  appreciate  the 
poetry  and  pathos  of  this  anecdote,  cannot  be  a 
mere  vinegar-cruet  of  fanatical  bile.  The  natural 
element  of  bitterness  in  his  composition  has  doubt- 
less, however,  grown  stronger,  from  the  virtual  os- 
tracism to  which  he  has  consigned  himself.  Never 
to  sit  in  the  sunshine  of  the  world  but  always  to  be 
in  its  shadow,  would  cloud  any  man's  apprehensions 
of  things,  however  self-sustained  he  might  be.  To 
be  for  ever  on  bad  terms  with  one's  own  age,  insen- 
sibly blackens  the  age  to  the  eyes  of  even  the  self- 
immolated  victim. 

His  philanthropic  aspirations  for  man  as  man, 
independent  of  color,  class,  or  country,  combine  with 
his  liberal  sympathy  for  whatever  is  grand  and 
lovely  to  raise  the  whole  character  of  his  style,  and 
stamp  it  with  a  beautiful  sublimity.  For  instance, 
in  an  address  in  which  he  was  describing  European 
matters  in  a  commonplace,  chatty  way,  he  uttered 
the  sentence,  "  There  is  a  place  on  the  pavement  of 
Florence  upon  which  is  graven  these  words :  '  On 
this  spot,  three  hundred  years  ago,  sat  Dante ' ;  "  he 
uttered  it  gently,  but  with  an  entire  change  of  man- 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  399 

ner  and  rhythm,  as  though  he  was  impressed  for  the 
moment  with  the  shadowy  presence  of  the  sad 
man  "  who  went  down  into  hell."  And  again, 
while  illustrating  in  a  homely,  familiar  way,  the 
training  of  the  common  people  in  Italy  to  a  love 
of  the  Beautiful,  his  spirit  seemed  to  take  an  up- 
ward wing,  as  he  said  slowly,  "  I  have  seen  a  char- 
coal pedlar  pause  before  the  magnificently  graven 
gates  of  the  Baptistry  at  Florence,  and  point  out 
to  his  little  son,  with  the  most  intelligent  admira- 
tion, the  bossy  and  sculptured  beauties  of  that 
twined  fabric,  which  Michael  Angelo  said  should 
be  the  gate  of  Paradise."  To  the  full  appreciation 
of  such  thoughts  as  these  his  soul  easily  rises ;  and 
he  delivers  them  with  all  the  lofty  feeling  of  the 
ideal  tragedy. 

Phillips's  mere  power  of  mind  and  understanding, 
as  exhibited  in  his  speaking,  is  evidently  considera- 
ble j  it  is  more  powerful  in  its  energy,  however,  than 
in  its  structure.  It  is  evident  that  his  oratory  is  not 
urged  on  by  mere  stress  of  intellectual  driving-power. 
In  Webster  and  Pinkney  and  Hamilton  the  motive 
power  seemed  to  be  sheer  intellect ;  intellect,  as  it 
•were,  all  fired  and  fused  and  raging  for  its  outlet. 
But  in  Phillips,  it  is  moral  power  acting  on  a  natu- 
rally good  understanding  and  lively  capacities.  His 
own  interior  mental  action  does  not  seem  so  wild 
and  rapid  as,  from  his  passion,  you  would  expect. 
His  genius  under  excitement  scintillates  and  flashes  ; 
it  does  not  explode.  Nor  do  his  thoughts  ever  leap 


400  THE  PLATFORM. 

forth  with  dazzling  brilliancy  and  prodigious  energy, 
smiting  down  and  utterly  trampling  in  the  dust  all 
opposition.  His  mind  never  rages  in  that  wild  con- 
fusion of  vivid  ideas,  that  Pythic  rapture,  which 
sends  forth  its  expressions  as  from  a  brain  reeling 
with  passion ;  such  extemporaneous  flights  as  Cur- 
ran  sometimes  ventured  upon,  when  most  impas- 
sioned. His  mind  seems,  in  ordinary  moods,  to  be 
comparatively  sedate  and  well  poised.  But  still 
he  is  rather  a  fierce,  hot  thinker,  than  a  large  thinker. 
He  has  rather  great  feelings  than  great  thoughts. 
He  covers  a  wide  plane  of  thought,  but  he  looks  at 
everything  only  from  certain  angles  and  in  certain 
lights.  Webster  generally,  on  any  public  occasion, 
caught  the  fundamental  structural  thought  of  the 
occasion.  Everett  seizes  upon  its  near  or  remote 
associations  with  grace  and  beauty;  but  Phillips 
sees  only  the  aspect  it  turns  toward  progressive 
ideas,  and  its  bearing  upon  reform  and  humanity. 

The  composition  of  his  matter  of  discourse  aids 
his  eloquence.  He  seems  to  a  close  observer  more 
artificial  than  would  be  seen  at  a  cursory  glance. 
His  speech,  spontaneous  as  it  appears,  is  really  con- 
ducted by  rules  of  art.  He  is  evidently  a  man  of 
reading  and  of  academic  refinement,  perhaps  even 
of  learning.  His  diction,  his  arrangement,  his  allu- 
sions, his  whole  style,  shows  it.  We  should  not 
suppose  that,  as  a  uniform  habit,  he  wrote  out  what 
he  said ;  but  passages  of  power  and  beauty  are 
probably  written,  and  he  doubtless  keeps  up  a  gen- 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  401 

eral  habit  of  accurate  written  composition.  But 
although  his  style  is  never  slovenly,  yet  it  is  not 
elaborate.  He  could  not  claim  the  credit  given  to 
the  composition  of  an  orator  of  antiquity,  which 
was  said  to  resemble  chased  silver ;  an  orator,  by 
the  way,  who  was  reputed  to  have  spent  more  time 
in  composing  his  eulogium  on  a  certain  battle,  than 
its  conqueror  took  in  winning  it.  In  single  passages 
of  Phillips,  however,  traces  of  this  miniature  work 
may  be  detected.  We  have  heard  him  deliver  some 
periods  in  which  a  single  misplaced  word  would 
have  marred  the  effect. 

His  propositions  are  few,  but  enforced  with  great 
variety  and  felicity  of  illustration.  Choate's  prop- 
ositions are  few;  but  enforced  and  mixed  up  with 
so  many  subordinate  trains  of  thought,  approaching 
and  receding  from  each  other  with  such  waving 
light  and  shade  of  illustration,  that  the  result  is 
often  a  confusing  dazzle  (like  the  colored-clouds  of 
Bengal  lights)  ;  but  with  Phillips  there  is  no  con- 
fusion. A  bright  mind  takes  his  impression  easily 
and  clearly ;  a  strong  mind  can  carry  away  all  of  his 
leading,  and  most  of  his  dependant  thoughts.  It  is 
this  which  contributes  so  much  to  make  him  so 
charming  a  speaker  for  a  long  speech.  He  never 
fatigues.  He  never  takes  you  by  oratoric  force  so 
far  that,  although  you  can't  get  away,  you  really 
wish  he  would  "  let  me  go."  He  delivered  "  a  ser- 
mon," as  he  called  it,  two  hours  long,  from  Theo- 
dore Parker's  pulpit,  in  the  Music  Hall  in  Boston, 
34* 


402  THE  PLATFORM. 

on  a  subject  in  which  nobody  was  particularly  inter- 
ested ;  in  it  he  inculcated  enlarged  views  of  philan- 
thropy to  criminals  and  distressed  persons,  yet  nobody 
went  away  before  the  two  hours  were  up.  He  did  not 
refer  to  a  note  or  paper  during  the  whole  delivery. 
It  lay  in  his  own  mind  bright  and  clear,  and  thus  it 
easily  glided  into  the  minds  of  his  hearers. 

His  diction  is  idiomatic,  not  very  rich,  but  exact 
and  telling.  It  is  at  once  homely  and  bookish.  It 
speaks  of  the  library  and  it  speaks  of  the  street.  He 
is  in  some  sense  what  might  be  called  a  phrase-mon- 
ger, for  he  has  a  great  knack  at  phrases  and  epithets. 
He  does  not  roll  his  thought  along  interminable 
sentences,  whose  clauses  are  bridged  over  with 
"  whiches  "  and  terminate  in  "  whats."  He  delights 
in  the  clean-cut  and  compact  sentence,  sharp  and 
solid  ;  sentences  that  singly  embody  a  sneer,  or  strike 
a  blow.  He  knows  that  it  is  not  rounded,  but  point- 
ed sentences  that  pierce  the  mind.  But  he  has  both. 
He  is  rhythmical,  and  he  is  sharp.  His  sentences 
are  rings  with  a  barbed  point  mounted  in  their  circle. 
He  has  many  surprises  of  thought  and  diction,  but 
they  are  never  abrupt  or  jagged.  Often,  little  terse 
and  telling  clauses  will  be  introduced,  as  if  on  pur- 
pose to  tail  off  some  swelling  passage,  or  interrupt 
some  movement  of  what  otherwise  might  be  a  mo- 
notonous majesty  of  tone.  He  has  considerable  hu- 
mor and  some  wit.  His  Fancy  also  is  playful.  His 
sentences  flash  as  they  strike ;  and  these  qualities 
all  conspire  to  spice  the  telling  things  he  says ;  things 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  403 

which  are  often  as  fit  for  memory  as  for  instant  im- 
pressiveness.  Thus,  to  illustrate  merely  his  neatness 
of  expression,  he  says,  "  Ideas,  not  Laws,  rule  in 
America.  The  New  York  Herald  and  the  New 
York  Tribune  rule  more  than  Caleb  Gushing  or 
Frank  Pierce  "  ;  and  again,  how  much  condensation 
of  higher  meaning  in  this  compact  sentence  of  his, 
"  Even  the  tombs  of  our  ancestors  are  no  longer  sa- 
cred, when  the  enemies  of  freedom  are  behind  them." 
He  has  a  graphic  power  of  delineation,  and  can  hit 
off  a  person  or  a  subject  with  a  few  master-strokes 
more  life-like  than  pages  of  labored  delineation. 
Woe  to  the  man  upon  whom  Phillips  chooses  to  fix 
his  epithets;  they  are  poisoned  arrows;  they  leave 
the  smart  behind.  Woe  also  to  the  cause  upon 
which  Phillips  chooses  to  fasten  his  pungent,  not 
flippant,  colloquialisms. 

Careful  as  his  composition  is  in  its  main  features, 
it  is  yet  a  colloquial  style.  If  he  ever  lets  himself 
go  on  a  sounding  gale  of  words,  he  comes  down 
speedily  to  a  saucy  gust  of  pertness.  His  style  is 
fit  for  every-day  speaking,  as  well  as  for  the  grand 
moments  of  life.  He  makes  many  points  ;  rather  than 
occasional  bursts  of  passion  like  Beecher,  or  bursts 
of  beauty  like  Everett.  This  is  the  truly  telling  kind 
of  oratory.  It  is  not  the  rare  great  things,  but  the 
common  little  things  that  really  make  up  life.  There 
are  few  Bunker  Hill  days:  it  is  Monday  morning 
and  Saturday  night  that  our  happiness  depends  up- 
on ;  and  the  oratory  fit  for  Monday  morning  and 


404  THE   PLATFOKM. 

Saturday  night,  fit  for  real  service,  must  be  a  week- 
day, not  a  gala-day  oratory. 

His  sharpness  and  pungency  of  thought  was  once 
happily  illustrated  at  a  Faneuil  Hall  meeting  called 
by  his  friends,  but  crowded  with  his  foes.  For  he 
is  so  popular  as  a  speaker,  that  enemies,  as  well  as 
friends,  go  to  hear  him.  The  adversaries  had  appar- 
ently come  there  on  this  occasion  from  mere  curios- 
ity, and  all  were  in  pretty  good  humor.  Phillips 
was  standing  on  the  platform  "  enjoying  his  own 
soul,"  and  expressing  his  thought  as  usual  with  en- 
tire carelessness  as  to  its  pleasing  the  motley  throng 
who  gazed  at  him ;  suddenly  some  one  shouted, 
"  Three  cheers  for  Daniel  Webster,"  —  they  were 
given  with  resounding  unction,  —  he  paused  blandly, 
while  they  were  being  given,  looking  not  at  all  dis- 
concerted ;  and  as  the  echoes  died  away,  he  turned 
upon  the  throng  as  if  at  bay :  "  Yes,"  said  he,  with 
a  look  of  calm  but  ineffable  scorn,  —  "  yes,  cheer  for 
the  man  who,"  &c.,  breaking  into  an  improvisation 
of  short,  sharp-cutting  invectives,  every  one  of  which 
told.  Again  the  cheers  arose,  —  this  time  for  "  Rufus 
Choate,"  and  again  the  dauntless  agitator  retorted. 
Thus  it  was  kept  up  for  half  an  hour.  The  crowd 
cheering  occasionally  everything  which  he  denounced, 
and  he  alternately  retorting  upon  the  subjects  of  their 
cheers ;  but  retorting  so  powerfully  that  finally  he  ab- 
solutely conquered  the  field,  and  by  the  tacit  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  opponents  and  auditors  themselves, 
manifestly  got  the  best  of  it.  No  outbreak  of  mere 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  405 

sustained  vehemence  could  have  put  down  that 
crowd.  It  needed  just  Phillips's  address  and  readi- 
ness and  wit  and  sarcasm  packed  into  sentences, 
whose  force  was  felt  the  moment  they  struck  the  ear. 
But  it  was  an  interesting  spectacle, — one  man  with 
few  friends  standing  in  full  view  on  an  open  stage, 
mailed  only  in  the  armor  of  his  self-possessed  intel- 
lect, in  full  career  of  battle  with  the  hostile  crowd ; 
and  finally  silencing  them,  and,  as  it  were,  spiking 
their  guns  before  their  face.  They  were  not  silenced 
either,  as  might  be  supposed,  because  they  were 
tired  of  interrupting  him  from  mere  fatigue ;  he  made 
them  tire  of  it  because  everything  they  said  he  turned 
to  his  own  advantage,  and  forced  the  laugh  against 
them,  literally  out  of  their  own  mouths.  We  shall 
not  soon  forget  his  look  of  boldness  and  of  calm  su- 
periority, while  he  held  that  crowd  at  bay.  It  called 
vividly  to  mind  a  scene  in  the  dramatic  career  of  the 
elder  Booth.  He  came  on  the  stage  one  night  so 
intoxicated,  that  after  half  the  first  scene  was  played, 
he  actually  lost  his  balance,  falling  full  length  upon 
the  stage.  The  audience  were  furious.  They  hissed 
and  stormed  loudly.  The  fall  completely  sobered 
Booth.  He  gat  up,  and  amidst  blasts  of  hisses  re- 
commenced his  part.  But  they  refused  to  hear  him. 
Never  shall  we  forget  how  he  turned  round  upon 
them.  He  drew  up  that  short,  tight-built  figure  of 
his  to  its  most  rigid  height,  and  slowly  marched, 
rather  than  walked  forward  on  the  stage,  to  the  very 
foot-lights.  There  he  stopped,  folded  his  arms,  and 


406  THE   PLATFORM. 

with  a  perfectly  sardonic  look  of  resolution  and  rage 
he  glared  upon  the  audience.  He  stood  stock  still ; 
not  a  muscle  moved,  save  that  his  lower  lip  was 
thrust  out  with  that  imperious  wilfulness  of  expres- 
sion he  had,  when  he  played  "  Richard  the  Third." 
One  by  one  the  rows  of  people  seemed  to  be  sub- 
dued as  they  gazed  on  the  apparition,  rising,  as  from 
the  dead,  before  them.  The  yellings  and  hissings 
gradually  subsided.  He  stood  and  looked  them 
down  with  that  fierce,  black,  malignant  eye, — tih1  all 
was  still,  perfectly  still,  —  then  he  turned  and  went 
on  with  his  part. 

It  is  unfortunate  for  his  oratory  that  Phillips 
should  not  in  any  way  have  allied  it  with  the  more 
permanent  forms  of  literature.  Eloquence  is  intense 
but  ephemeral  in  its  effects ;  its  cradle  is  its  coffin. 
But  his  style,  so  skilfully  constructed,  so  warm  with 
composed  passion,  so  vivacious  with  point,  so  ele- 
vated with  occasional  splendor,  should  have  been 
engraved  in  lasting  material.  He  should  have  gar- 
nered up  his  trophied  thoughts  that  the  sheaf  might 
stand  a  permanent  ornament  on  the  harvest-field 
of  New  England  speech.  Few  of  his  combustible 
school  of  orators,  the  Shiel,  Choate,  and  Prentiss 
school,  have  the  peculiar  power  to  perpetuate  their 
momentary  improvisations,  to  cast  their  red-hot  mat- 
ter in  enduring  mould;  he  probably  could.  Some 
of  his  speeches,  revised  by  himself,  would  doubtless 
read  well.  With  their  classic  point,  and  French 
terseness,  many  of  the  sentences  would  have  the 
ring  of  the  true  coin  of  rhetoric  as  well  as  of  oratory. 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  407 

How  well,  for  example,  he  could  tell  a  story  —  a 
dramatic  art  of  composition  in  miniature  —  the  fol- 
lowing extract  from  a  reported  address  of  his  shows.  It 
is  interesting,  also,  as  containing  the  expression  of  an 
appreciation,  not  more  admiring  than  it  was  deserved, 
of  Sargeant  S.  Prentiss.  Phillips  said  :  "  That  most 
eloquent  of  all  Southerners,  as  I  think  Mr.  Prentiss 
of  Mississippi,  was  addressing  a  crowd  of  some  four 
thousand  people  in  that  State,  defending  the  tariff; 
and,  in  the  course  of  an  eloquent  period  which  rose 
gradually  to  some  beautiful  climax,  he  painted  the 
thrift,  the  energy,  the  comfort,  the  wealth,  the  civili- 
zation of  the  North,  in  glowing  colors  when  there 
rose  up  on  the  vision  of  the  assembly,  in  the  open 
air,  a  horseman  of  magnificent  proportions  ;  and,  just 
at  the  moment  of  hushed  attention,  when  the  voice 
of  Prentiss  had  ceased,  and  the  applause  was  about 

to  break  forth,  the  horseman  exclaimed,  '  D the 

North.'  The  curse  was  so  much  in  unison  with  the 
habitual  feeling  of  a  Mississippi  audience,  that  it 
quenched  their  enthusiasm,  and  nothing  but  respect 
for  the  speaker  kept  the  crowd  from  applauding  the 
horseman.  Prentiss  turned  his  lame  foot  around 
and  said,  '  Major  Moody,  will  you  rein  in  that  steed 
a  moment  ? '  He  assented.  Said  he,  '  Major,  the 
horse  on  which  you  sit  came  from  Upper  Missouri ; 
the  saddle  that  surmounts  him  came  from  Trenton, 
N.  J. ;  the  hat  on  your  head  was  made  in  Danbury, 
Conn. ;  the  boots  you  wear  came  from  Lynn,  Mass.; 
the  linen  of  your  shirt  is  Irish,  and  Boston  made 


408  THE   PLATFORM. 

it  up ;  your  broadcloth  coat  is  of  Lowell  manufac- 
ture, and  was  cut  in  New  York ;  and  if  to-day  you 
surrender  what  you  owe  the  "cursed  North,"  you 
would  sit  stark  naked.'"  (Laughter  and  loud  ap- 
plause.) 

He  is  marvellously  aided  in  all  his  expressions  by 
his  voice.  As  an  organ  of  expression  it  is  singularly 
flexible.  On  its  lower  notes  it  is  very  rich,  though 
on  its  general  level  it  is  thin.  But  its  delicacy  of 
intonation  and  flexibility  enable  him  to  vary  his 
tones  indefinitely,  without  resorting  to  any  asperity 
or  loudness.  We  heard  his  beautiful  lecture  on  the 
"  Lost  Arts  "  of  the  world,  delivered  twice  in  the 
Tremont  Temple,  each  time  to  crowds,  and  each 
time  with  renewed  pleasure.  Yet,  during  the  whole 
hour  of  its  delivery,  he  hardly  raised  his  voice  above 
a  moderate  colloquial  tone.  His  voice  has  also  the 
magnetic  quality,  which  many  rounder  and  more 
resonant  voices  lack.  In  point,  however,  of  reso- 
nancy  and  beauty  of  quality,  it  is  not  so  distin- 
guished as  it  is  by  its  delicacy.  It  can  respond  to 
the  most  exquisite  shades  of  feeling  and  sentiment, 
reporting  them  to  the  ear  with  all  the  minute  fidelity 
of  the  daguerreotype  to  the  eye.  When  he  rose  for 
the  first  time  in  Faneuil  Hall,  on  the  occasion  al- 
luded to  in  the  beginning  of  this  description,  his 
voice  got  hold  of  every  one  at  once.  It  lulled  them, 
and  piqued  curiosity  and  interest.  A  gentleman 
who  sat  behind  him  has  since  remarked,  that,  as  he 
looked  over  the  turbulent  audience,  they  seemed  to 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  409 

be  affected  with  a  perceptible  sense  of  control  as 
Phillips's  voice  fell  on  their  ear. 

Although  his  tones  are  level  and  low,  yet  the  ac- 
curateness  of  his  articulation  renders  them  audible 
to  an  audience  of  several  thousands.  Doubtless  the 
deliberation  with  which  they  are  uttered,  and  the 
correctness  with  which  the  inflections  of  their  mean- 
ing are  defined  by  his  shades  of  tone,  contribute 
also  to  this  clearness.  His  tones  have  a  rhythm  and 
a  melodious  flow,  but  they  have  no  song  as  of  ideal 
music  floating  on  their  cadences.  We  have  heard 
passages  in  the  Platform-speaking  of  Ogden  Hoff- 
man and  Rufus  Choate  which  sounded  with  the  elo- 
quent music  of  a  minstrel-lay.  But  though  the  style 
of  Phillips  is  antithetic,  and  his  periods  balanced, 
he  hardly  so  much  enchants  the  mind,  as  carries  it 
along  with  him  by  an  easy  and  sensible  compulsion 
rising  toward  ideality  and  grandeur. 

In  his  tones  and  in  his  composition,  although  thus 
conversational,  he  is  also  elevated.  He  exemplifies 
the  principle  of  all  art,  that  though  graded  on  a  level 
with  every-day  thought  and  manner,  it  should  open, 
in  some  direction,  to  the  lofty  and  the  infinite. 
Mountains  are  based  upon  the  level  of  the  earth, 
but  their  peaks  touch  the  sky.  By  gradual  slope 
we  ascend  them,  and  walk  from  the  plane  of  the 
market  to  the  pavement  of  the  stars.  So  in  all  the 
Fine  Arts,  it  will  be  seen  that  they  partake  equally 
of  the  familiar  and  the  ideal.  Speaking  which  is 
merely  conversational,  has  no  lift  to  it ;  the  mind 
35 


410  THE  PLATFORM. 

may  be  held,  but  it  is  not  inspired.  Speaking  which 
has  no  natural  every-day  manner  as  its  basis,  is 
stilted  and  fatiguing.  It  may  astonish,  but  it  does 
not  impress.  The  orator  should  frame  his  style 
upon  the  basis  of  good,  plain,  common-sense  talk, 
man  to  man,  face  to  face,  hand  to  hand ;  the  same 
plain,  frank  way  in  which  he  would  say  "  Good 
morning,"  and  "  How  are  you  ?  "  But  that  style,  in 
its  rhythmic  flow,  and  as  it  advances,  in  its  more 
and  more  imposing  diction  should  lead  off  and  lead 
up,  toward  the  vistas  of  cloud-land  and  the  music  of 
the  spheres. 

Harrison  Gray  Otis,  many  old  men  of  Boston  are 
still  delighted  to  recall  as  the  greatest  orator  they 
ever  heard  in  Faneuil  Hall.  We  recently  heard  one 
of  these  authoritative  critics  (a  passionate  idolizer  of 
Webster,  by  the  way)  admit,  that  Otis  had  more 
command  over  a  great,  mixed  audience  than  Web- 
ster or  Choate  ;  "  And,"  said  he,  "  of  all  the  young 
Boston  orators,  I  think,  from  what  I  have  heard, 
that  Wendell  Phillips  is  most  like  him."  Otis's 
silver  voice,  his  bewitching  grace  of  gesture  and 
address,  contributed  much  to  his  effect ;  and  though 
in  this  point  of  gesture  Phillips  would  be  inferior, 
yet  in  effective  modulations  of  voice  and  in  ease  of 
delivery  he  is  undoubtedly  his  equal.  Otis's  air  of 
high  breeding,  that  courtly  and  patrician  dignity, 
which  in  his  day  men  liked  to  see  upon  the  Plat- 
form, although  it  then  aided  him,  would  now  dam- 
age his  oratory  before  the  multitude.  Indeed,  the 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  411 

flowing  graciousness  of  his  princely  courtesy  of  man- 
ner was  peculiarly  fit  for  the  panegyrist  of  an  em- 
pire ;  it  was  not  so  appropriate  for  the  mouth-piece 
of  a  boisterous  democracy. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  what  a  tacit  compliment 
is  paid  to  Phillips  by  the  universal  copying  of  his 
manner.  Whether  consciously  or  not,  the  whole 
Antislavery  school  of  speakers,  from  Theodore 
Parker  to  Frederick  Douglass,  seem  to  catch  more 
or  less  of  his  intonations  and  cadences. 

He  is  more  quiet  than  any  orator  we  have  ever 
heard,  who  pretended  to  have  passion.  It  is  the 
very  style  for  an  Agitator,  because  it  has  no  ag- 
itation. You  are  not  forewarned  by  it  against 
excitement.  You  are  lulled  into  insecurity,  and 
before  you  know  it,  you  find  yourself  on  fire.  We 
remember  noticing  in  one  of  his  most  inflammable 
appeals,  a  slight  but  significant  indication  of  the 
entire  repose  of  his  body  and  arms ;  for  the  fingers 
of  his  right  hand  were  carelessly  dangling  and  play- 
ing on  the  side  of  the  table  upon  which  it  rested, 
while  he  was  delivering  the  very  climax  of  the 
appeal.  This  repose  of  manner  is  rarely  broken. 

Once,  however,  in  attacking  Kossuth,  we  saw 
him  wonderfully  declamatory  and  vehement.  Per- 
haps it  was  because  he  felt  the  apparent  paradox 
involved  in  the  challenge  of  one  Reformer  to  another ; 
but  most  probably  it  was  because  he  felt  individu- 
ally indignant,  and  as  if  personally  bereaved  of 
sympathy,  by  Kossuth's  severe  abstinence  from  the 


412  THE  PLATFORM. 

slavery  topics   in    his    American  speeches.     To  all 
men  except  him,  however,  it  was  obvious  that  Kos- 
suth   could   not   discuss  our   most  dangerous   civil 
question   if  he  hoped  for  our  national  aid.      The 
American  orator,   in   inveighing  against  the  Hun- 
garian orator  for  this  high  breach  of  duty,  as  he 
deemed  it,  got  into  a  mood  quite  ferocious.     He  was 
stormy,    and    spoke    in    his    most   vociferous   key. 
Though  commencing  in  that  low  tone  of  his  which 
is  so  grateful  to  the  ear,  he  constantly  started  into  a 
pitch  of  hard,  harsh  violence.     This  he  relieved  and 
alternated  with  much  skill,  by  dropping  his  voice  on 
sudden,  sharp   interrogations,   which  he  put  to  the 
imaginary   presence   of    Kossuth ;    and   not    unfre- 
quently  his  tone   sunk  down  almost  to  a  whisper. 
The  transitions  from  that  whisper  to  the  loud,  fierce 
clauses  of  his  vituperation  were  prodigiously  effec- 
tive.    It  was  a  dulcet  solo,  with  a  brass-band  chorus. 
Mr.  Walsh,  the  former  American  consul  at  Paris, 
heard  Talma  say  the  words  "  the  iron  reign  of  the 
people"  in  a  manner  which  amazed  him.     He  said 
that  every  word  in  the  clause,  seemed  a  link  in  a 
chain-bolt ;  each  was  so  hard  and  solid  and  round. 
Somehow  so,  perhaps  it  was,  that  on  this  occasion 
the  orator  hurled  at  Kossuth  the  linked  bolts  of  his 
repeated  blows.     Kossuth  was  then  in  the  full  tide 
of  his  American  glory.     The  troops  of  the  Republic 
were  presenting  arms  and  lowering  banners  to  him 
everywhere.     He  was  then   in  the  full  progress  of 
that  march  of  enthusiasm  from  Castle  Garden  to  the 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  413 

central  capital ;  such  a  progress  as  no  foreigner  but 
Lafayette  had  ever  made  here.  To  throw  himself 
athwart  such  a  course ;  to  interrupt  for  a  moment  the 
national  carnival  of  admiring  passion,  while  brand- 
ing the  idol  of  the  moment  with  a  charge  of  sin,  — 
this  was  bold  work  for  any  orator ;  but  Phillips  was 
not  afraid.  He  has  the  boldness  of  another  Peter 
the  Hermit,  and  for  his  cause  he  "  will  not  be  afraid 
of  death  or  bane."  What  he  preaches  he  practises. 
He  is  not  a  man  to  foment  a  frightful  rumpus,  and 
then  send  for  the  police  to  take  special  care  of  him. 
He  would  not,  like  the  Continental  captain,  inflame 
and  aggravate  a  militia  to  a  charge ;  and  then  get 
behind  the  fence  "  to  see  how  it  worked."  No !  He 
would  ride  the  whirlwind  he  had  raised. 

He  has  a  certain  species  of  the  power  of  declama- 
tory interrogation ;  the  power  of  putting  those  short, 
sharp  questions  which  smite  with  their  scornful  sar- 
casm. This  was  a  marked  quality  in  the  Henry 
Clay  style  of  oratory.  But  the  victim  of  Phillips's 
rhetoric  is  rather  blighted  with  contempt,  than  blast- 
ed with  the  descending  stroke  of  power ;  he  is  not 
struck  with  live  fire  which  seems  to  leap  from  the 
orator's  eyes  and  out  of  his  very  soul ;  but  he  is  trans- 
fixed and  held  up  to  be  sneered  at,  —  spitted,  as  it 
were,  in  the  face  of  the  universe.  Lord  Chatham's 
denunciatory  interrogations  were  not  crucifying, 
they  were  annihilating.  "  I  have  but  one  question 
to  ask  the  Attorney- General,"  said  he,  fastening  his 
eyes  upon  Murray,  with  all  the  tiger  in  his  nature 
35* 


414  THE  PLATFORM. 

concentrated  in  their  glare,  —  "  but  my  words  shall 
be  daggers."  Mansfield  visibly  quailed  and  trem- 
bled as  their  eyes  met.  "Judge  Festus  trembles," 
said  the  conqueror ;  "  he  shall  hear  me  some  other 
day."  This  momentary  majesty,  to  which  we  may 
correctly  apply  the  epithet  "  awful,"  we  never  saw 
Phillips  exhibit ;  fierce  we  have  seen  him  look,  but 
never  "  awful."  The  younger  Booth,  who  is  now 
surprising  the  theatrical  world  by  his  decided  though 
immature  histrionic  genius,  has  a  measure  of  this 
power.  When,  in  "  Richard  the  Third,"  he  confronts 
Lord  Stanley,  who  is  meditating  desertion,  and  after 
that  passionate  interrogatory  reprimand  to  him  for 
the  situation  of  his  forces,  "What  do  they  in  the 
North  when  they  should  serve  their  sovereign  in  the 
West  ?  "  —  after  that,  stands  a  moment,  as  if  staring 
into  Stanley's  inmost  soul,  then,  he  drops  his  voice 
just  as  his  father  did,  —  "  Stay,  I  '11  not  trust  thee." 
As  he  jerks  out  this  last  cadence,  his  eye  is  terrible ; 
it  is  blacker  than  black,  while  his  cheek  and  brow 
blanches  to  an  ivory  whiteness ;  the  two  black  eyes 
seem  to  stand  out  like  twin  globes  of  jet  glaring  out 
of  the  face  of  snowy  marble.  It  is  Night  blackening 
on  the  brow  of  Morning.  In  this  case  the  power 
of  which  we  speak  appears  rather  in  the  facial  than 
the  audible  expression ;  but  it  is  there. 

We  cannot  attribute  Phillips's  lack  of  this  quality 
to  his  being  of  the  blue-eyed  Saxon  temperament ; 
for  the  elder  Booth,  whose  passion  exceeded  his  son's, 
had  blue  eyes ;  they  were  dark  blue,  and  looked 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  415 

darker  when  he  was  in  his  tragic  combustions  ;  but 
at  one  time  of  his  life  they  were,  we  have  been  told, 
almost  as  blue  as  the  sky.  Blue-eyed  natures  are 
perhaps  more  terrible  when  they  do  storm,  than  the 
black-eyed,  torrid  temperaments ;  they  have  the  sky 
in  their  natures  as  in  their  looks,  —  light,  beautiful, 
and  sunny ;  — "  angels "  these  are,  said  the  dark 
priest  of  Rome  when  the  English  youths  were  first 
seen  walking  the  Roman  ways  ;  —  and  when  in  these 
sunnier  natures  the  thunders  hurtle,  it  is  like  peals  in 
the  summer  heaven, —  short,  black,  fearful.  So,  with 
a  sudden,  tempest-like  squall,  the  blue-eyed  Ken- 
tuckian  one  day  startled  the  opponents  of  the  War 
of  1812,  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  He  was 
discoursing  on  his  darling  theme, — the  glory  of  his 
Country ;  and  on  a  sudden  he  came  down  upon  them 
with  all  his  might.  On  the  words  of  one  single 
questioning  sentence,  he  seemed  to  let  right  down 
on  them  a  storm  of  indignation :  "  If  a  man  is  not 
patriotic,"  —  here  there  was  an  immense  pause,  ev- 
erybody expecting  then  a  prepared  descent  of  declam- 
atory denunciation  on  the  wretch  who  "  is  not  pa- 
triotic," —  but  the  Great  Master  dropped  his  voice, 
(very  much  as  Booth  did  on  his  "  I  '11  not  trust 
you,")  and  he  crushed  the  man  who  "  is  not  patri- 
otic" with  the  single  sentence,  —  "  What  is  he  good 
for  ?  "  A  mountain  of  obloquy  seemed  to  roll  from 
the  subsiding  tones  of  that  swiftly  sinking  sentence, 
upon  the  contemptible  object;  —  he  seemed  to  be  lit- 
erally engulfed  and  buried,  under  the  infinite  con- 
tempt of  its  illimitable  scorn. 


416  THE   PLATFORM. 

To  realize  by  imagination  this  effective  question, 
which  comes  nearer  home  to  us  than  the  questions 
which  Shylock  utters  on  the  Eialto  by  the  Bridge  of 
Sighs,  might  perhaps  help  one  to  imagine  the  fa- 
mous utterance  of  the  elder  Booth,  upon  that  quick 
succession  of  questions  by  which  Shakespeare's  Shy- 
lock  replies  to  Salarino :  "  I  am  a  Jew.  Hath  not  a 
Jew  eyes  ?  Hath  not  a  Jew  hands  ?  If  you  prick 
us,  do  we  not  bleed  ?  If  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not 
laugh  ?  If  you  poison  us,  do  we  not  die  ?  And  if 
you  wrong  us,  shall  we  not  revenge  ?  "  Every  one 
of  these  questions,  when  he  walked  the  stage  at  his 
prime,  he  gave  with  a  sort  of  slow  swiftness;  the 
questions  were  quick,  but  there  was  between  each  an 
instant's  interval  of  absolute  silence ;  one  after  the 
other  they  broke  upon  the  ear,  like  successive  claps 
of  thunder. 

The  nearest  advance  to  this  —  a  power  to  be  called 
withering  —  which  we  ever  heard  in  the  oratory  of 
Phillips,  was  in  upbraiding  Edward  Everett  for  "re- 
membering to  forget,"  when  he  eulogized  Washing- 
ton, that  the  first  President  set  free  his  slaves. 

Upon  this  apostasy  from  Liberty,  as  he  called  it, 
the  orator  rested  for  several  sentences ;  with  each 
one  he  seemed  to  stab  his  object,  through  the  sub- 
missive sympathies  of  his  audience  ;  at  last  he  so  ex- 
cited their  feelings  that  they  broke  in  upon  him  with 
according  cheers ;  —  as  the  cheers  resounded  and 
rose  again  and  just  began  to  die  away,  Phillips, 
whose  denouncing  attitude  and  shining  eye  had  con- 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  417 

tinned  fixed  during  the  momentary  tumult,  rolled  out 
this  eloquent  apostrophe,  —  "  O  let  not  your  admir- 
ing hearts  refuse  the  condemnation,  when  timid  lips 
steal  from  the  diadem  of  Washington  the  brightest 
jewel  of  his  crown."  Right  up  again,  upon  the  very 
sinking  swell  of  the  still  audible  applauses,  -the  accu- 
sation seemed  to  rise  once  more ;  and  high  and  loud 
above  the  rallying  cheering,  rang  and  re-echoed  the 
withering  appeal. 

But  Phillips  is  no  coarse  brawler.  He  is  in  char- 
acter and  temperament  the  very  opposite  of  the  ro- 
bust and  brawny  movers  of  popular  seditions,  —  the 
Jack  Cades  of  society.  We  saw  the  great  Irish 
agitator,  Daniel  O'Connell,  a  few  years  since,  and 
remember  mentally  contrasting  him  with  the  Ameri- 
can agitator.  No  two  men  could  be  more  absolute 
antipodes  of  each  other. 

But  his  mere  manner  he  can  double  and  redouble 
the  value  and  import  of  his  choice  words.  If  he 
says  to  an  audience,  "  I  thank  you  for  the  confidence 
you  have  shown  me  by  your  invitation  to  me,"  he 
makes  that  word  "confidence"  do  the  work  of  a 
whole  speech  of  appreciating  acknowledgment,  from 
an  ordinary  man ;  for  he  is  of  the  class  of  men  with 
whom  manner  is  almighty.  He  is  of  the  same  class 
with  the  Kentuckian  Breckinridge,  the  successor  to 
Congress  in  Henry  Clay's  district,  and  the  present 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States  ;  who  when  he 
got  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  met  and  foiled  a 
fierce  assault  upon  him,  by  one  utterance.  Mr.  Cut- 

&  . 


418  THE   PLATFORM. 

ting,  the  distinguished  lawyer  from  New  York,  had 
charged  him  with  giving  his  vote  on  the  Nebraska 
Bill,  under  Presidential  influence.  In  reply  to  this 
he  made  no  argument,  but  he  did  better  than  to 
argue.  He  pronounced  this  single  sentiment  with  a 
royal  and  triumphant  dignity,  —  "  Sir,  I  am  the  peer 
of  President  Pierce " ;  but  as  he  pronounced  that 
emphatic  word  "  peer,"  in  which  his  argument  was 
all  embraced,  he  drew  himself  up  till  it  seemed  as  if 
he  actually  loomed  and  lowered  over  all  possibilities 
of  human  tallness ;  and  he  gave  it  with  the  effect  of 
a  whole  hour's  logic.  The  pride  and  majesty  of  his 
entire  manhood  seemed  concentrated  in  that  one 
word,  whose  thought  indignantly  repelled  the  possi- 
bility of  his  submitting  to  the  President's  dictation. 

Phillips  himself  affords  a  measure  of  the  mere  effect 
of  his  manner,  by  the  difference  of  effect  which  he 
produces,  when  he  is  not  much  interested  and  when 
he  is  very  much  interested,  in  what  he  is  saying.  For 
as  his  general  style  of  composition  and  enunciation 
is  comparatively  uniform,  the  difference  of  his  effect 
is  a  measure  of  the  power  of  his  mere  manner.  So 
we  have  seen  a  great  actor,  whose  habits  were  not 
so  good  as  his  friends  would  have  desired,  pronounce 
his  part  in  one  play,  on  successive  evenings,  with  en- 
tirely different  success ;  yet  the  words,  the  conception, 
the  enunciation,  the  cadences,  and  the  general  elements 
of  delivery  were  the  same  on  both  evenings  ;  but  on 
the  evening  when  the  bowl  had  enfeebled  him,  the 
electric  manner  did  not  stamp  the  words ;  the  words 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  419 

and  tones  were  the  same,  yet  not  the  same ;  when 
he  was  himself,  they  were  charged  with  magnetism ; 
when  he  was  not  himself,  they  were  merely  good 
elocution.  In  the  one  case  they  were  ball  cartridges ; 
in  the  other,  they  were  blank  cartridges. 

In  Phillips's  face,  too,  you  will  often  see  an  expres- 
sion of  features  foretokening  the  thought  whose 
blow,  in  an  instant  more,  you  will  feel ;  just  as  the 
lightning  on  the  face  of  heaven  glitters  in  our  eyes, 
before  the  thunder  from  its  depths  roars  in  our  ears. 
So  Harry  Clay,  when  the  inward  storm  of  his  temper 
was  upon  his  heart,  would  rise  up  and  seem  to  gird 
his  muscles  for  the  fray ;  his  long  arms  would  sweep 
round  his  lofty  head ;  and  when  in  their  revolving, 
the  little  finger  of  his  right  hand  would  catch  the 
little  lock  of  hair  on  his  right  temple  (a  trick  which 
he  had  a  habit  of)  flurrying  it  upward  and  backward, 
then  the  Senators  looked  out  for  squaUs ;  they  needed 
no  better  omen  of  the  bolts  that  were  reddening  in 
his  bosom.  The  eyes  are  quicker  than  the  ears ;  and 
the  thoughts  of  the  true  orator  can  paint  themselves 
on  his  face  much  sooner  than  they  can  precipitate 
themselves  from  his  mouth. 

Phillips  is  a  fine-grained  man.  He  does  not  look 
robust.  He  does  not  look  as  if  he  were  proof  against 
protracted  toils ;  but  Demosthenes  also  was  of  feeble 
build  and  frame ;  contrary  to  the  general  notion, 
which  somehow  would  attribute  to  that  "terrible 
man "  the  make  and  massive  chest  of  the  Webste- 
rian  conformation.  Cicero  was  so  feeble  that  he 


420  THE  PLATFORM. 

often  fainted  after  speaking.  William  Pitt  only 
sustained  himself  by  incredible  drafts  of  Old  Port. 
These  men  illustrate  the  victory  of  the  soul  over  the 
body.  A  large  part  of  the  great  work,  as  well  as  the 
fine  work  of  the  world,  has  been  done  by  invalids. 
In  this  age  how  memorable  is  the  specimen  of  the 
same  victorious  moral  power,  which  Dr.  Kane's  life 
presents  !  That  little  asthmatic,  rheumatic,  scurvy- 
ridden  hero,  lying  in  the  arms  of  his  associate  Dr. 
Hayes  repeatedly  as  if  dying  ;  yet  reviving,  to 
breathe  forth  again  and  again  the  unquenchable  fire 
within  him  which  was  to  melt  the  frozen  gates  of 
the  Arctic  world ! 

It  will  be  seen,  from  all  that  has  been  said,  how 
completely  in  producing  this  eloquence  of  which  we 
are  treating,  the  man  blends  with  his  oratory.  The 
personality  is  never  lost  sight  of.  He  is  not  the  ad- 
vocate of  a  cause ;  he  is  its  embodiment.  When  he 
talks  to  you  about  Emancipation,  he  is  not  idealizing 
or  rhapsodizing.  You  feel  he  is  in  earnest;  you 
seem  to  see  before  you  the  very  Genius  of  Emancipa- 
tion. It  is  gratifying  to  look  upon  the  mere  display 
of  talent,  though  its  object  be  not  great,  and  the  man 
who  owns  it  is  small ;  but  when  the  man's  own  hon- 
est character  corresponds  with  and  reinforces  the  ex- 
hibition of  faculties,  then  the  union  of  eminent  man- 
hood with  eminent  talent  is  an  admirable  spectacle. 

In  character,  after  all,  lies  the  source  of  the  great 
energies  of  eloquence.  The  sophistical  eloquence  of 
the  schools,  or  of  the  advocate ;  the  eloquence  which 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  421 

trains  itself  to  maintain  any  cause,  and  any  side  of  a 
cause  with  equal  success,  gives  us  only  expertness, 
and  grace,  and  a  simulated  passion.  It  produces,  to 
be  sure,  affecting  results,  and  often  provokes  warm 
applauses.  But  it  is  the  momentous  occasions  crown- 
ing the  career  of  a  life's  devotion  to  a  cause,  that  give 
the  immortal  strains,  which  once  heard,  "  Mankind 
will  not  willingly  let  die."  It  is  when  on  the  dial  of 
Destiny,  the  mighty  finger  is  pointing  to  the  decisive 
hours  of  the  world's  history,  and  a  nation  sits  wait- 
ing for  —  a  man;  then  if  the  man  can  rise  whose 
life  has  all  along  been  pointing  to  that  hour,  —  a 
whole  race  listens  to  him,  dominion  is  written  on  his 
words,  and  his  thoughts  are  enshrined  in  the  land's 
language.  This  kind  of  speaking  it  was,  indeed, 
from  which  Philosophy  first  styled  Eloquence  not  un- 
aptly "  Queen  of  this  world's  affairs."  For  that  ora- 
tory must  be  of  the  highest  style  of  discourse,  which 
is  the  offspring  of  a  life  consecrated  to  one  com- 
manding idea  ;  that  idea  concentrating  all  the  energy 
of  a  man's  nature,  and  condensing  into  a  few  great 
strokes  the  passion  of  a  life. 

When  Phillips  said,  in  one  of  his  most  striking 
speeches,  "  They  think  we  dissemble,  but  let  me  tell 
them  we  are  in  earnest,  terribly  in  earnest,"  he  said 
it  simply,  plainly,  without  stage-trick ;  but  it  sound- 
ed like  the  suppressed  muttering  of  distant  thunder ; 
into  the  vial  of  that  one  word's  expression  he  seemed 
to  pour  the  accumulated  passion  of  his  entire  human 
nature.  Every  tone  of  that  "terribly  in  earnest" 
36 


422  THE   PLATFORM. 

was,  as  it  were,  distilled  from  a  drop  of  his  heart's 
blood.  When  he  says,  as  we  have  heard  him  say, 
"  I  do  not  assail  this  senator  or  that  newspaper,  not- 
withstanding they  assail  me,  because  I  think  that  un- 
derneath their  mistaken  abuse  is  an  honest  intention 
to  advance  Liberty ;  —  nay,  I  will  give  that  newspa- 
per scorching  epithets  with  which  to  blister  my  name, 
I  will  arm  that  senator  with  new  weapons  with  which 
to  strike  me  down,  if  over  my  prostrate  form  they  will 
only  move  forward  the  Abolition  cause,"  —  he  speaks 
what  he  feels,  and  it  is  a  memorable  as  well  as  elo- 
quent abnegation  of  self.  When  he  says,  "  Cover 
me  with  odium,  shower  your  arrows  on  me  from  ev- 
ery quarter,  from  the  senate,  the  church,  the  street, 
I  will  bear  it  all,  so  that  thereby  I  may  take  the  slave 
by  the  hand,  and  lift  him  up  into  an  equality  with 
myself"  ;  this  is  the  thought  which  springs  from  an 
enthusiasm  which  no  man  can  mimic,  any  more 
than  you  could  mimic  the  smile  that  flutters  on  the 
face  of  the  martyr  chained  in  flame. 

The  capital  specimens  of  oratory  which  the  world 
keeps  by  it  for  ever  are  in  the  key  of  grand  convic- 
tions, not  of  advocacy.  Pericles  was  by  no  means 
so  cunning  an  artist  in  words  as  were  many  Athe- 
nian demagogues  who  came  after  him ;  but  his  Fu- 
neral Oration  over  the  dead  after  the  first  campaign 
of  the  Peloponnesian  War,  imperfectly  as  we  have 
it,  still  rivets  the  attention  of  learned  enthusiasm. 
O'Connell  was  immeasurably  inferior,  as  a  mere 
rhetorician,  to  Richard  Lalor  Shiel ;  but  his  spoken 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  423 

words  wielded  infinitely  more  power  than  those  of 
his  brilliant  coadjutor  ;  because  he  embodied  a  great 
nation's  aspirations,  because  the  heart  of  his  whole 
nation  seemed  to  strain  in  his  breast.  This  was  so 
at  the  time  of  their  delivery,  as  well  as  afterwards. 
His  thought  inspired  him  to  a  more  genuine  rapture 
than  even  Shiel's  genius  could  attain.  When  Phil- 
lips stands  up,  and  in  words  as  distinct  and  softly 
rounded  as  if  stamped  on  satin,  traces  the  course 
of  the  Abolition  march ;  traces  how  it  opened  with 
the  mobbing  of  Garrison,  and  follows  it  down  to 
the  present  time,  in  which  he  thinks  he  discerns  the 
symptoms  of  a  flagging,  or  at  least  a  dissembling 
hostility,  he  seems  to  feel  as  Grattan  felt,  when 
he  was  struggling  for  Irish  rights  against  the  colos- 
sal energies  of  England.  We  do  not  say  that  his 
cause  is  the  same  in  essential  principle,  but  that  he 
is  equally  inspired  by  it ;  equally  dilated  beyond  the 
measure  of  his  natural  manhood ;  and  if  it  shall  ever 
be  given  to  him,  to  behold  the  banner  of  America 
blanched  white  from  the  bloody  stain  of  an  enor- 
mous wrong,  —  now  sadly  nationalized  under  all  its 
splendid  folds, —  then,  with  the  glorious  transport  of 
Henry  Grattan,  as  he  rose  to  address  the  Parliament 
of  Ireland,  after  an  independent  judiciary  had  been 
conceded  to  his  labors  for  them,  he  also  may  say, 
"  At  length  I  address  a  new  nation ! "  Address  a 
new-born  nation,  —  what  a  thought!  To  how  few 
of  the  lawgivers  or  the  prophets  on  earth  has  this 
august  privilege  been  accorded  by  Fate.  It  is  the 


424  THE  PLATFORM. 

prerogative  only  of  those  great  orators  and  captains 
in  whose  lives  the  life  of  that  new-born  nationajity 
has  been  garnered  up.  Here  is  the  field  of  eloquence  ; 
these  are  the  eloquent  men,  —  the  men  whose  lives, 
as  well  as  their  words,  are  eloquent. 

In  the  ecstasy  of  the  new  birth  of  a  State  em- 
bodying a  cardinal  idea,  or  in  the  agony  of  the  last 
hours  of  a  State  whose  vital  idea  has  withered  in 
its  breast, —  here  is  the  realm  of  eloquence.  None 
but  the  orators  of  character,  of  devotion,  of  faith, 
are  equal  to  the  time.  If  they  are  permitted  to  see 
the  moment  of  such  a  victory,  though  they  stand 
only  on  a  Mount  of  Promise,  afar  off  from  the  ban- 
nered ranks  which  march  to  it,  they  die  happy ;  and 
the  world  is  richer  for  their  dying  words.  But  if, 
like  Kossuth,  they  speak  only  from  the  sickness  of 
the  hope  long  deferred,  they  still  speak  with  an  ele- 
vation superior  to  all  the  cunning  of  sophistry  or  the 
trick  of  art.  Kossuth  and  Phillips  are  now  in  this 
latter  rank  of  those  who  sigh  and  who  aspire.  Kos- 
suth was  once  described  in  a  governmental  despatch 
in  Europe,  as  "  A  man  who  walks  as  if  in  thought, 
and  often  raises  his  eyes  to  the  skies."  With  hope 
and  with  the  skies  the  thoughts  of  the  martyrs 
their  conviction  must  always  commerce.  But  the 
play  of  these  men  is  not  acted  yet.  Destiny  is  still 
writing  out  their  separate  roles  for  the  stage  of  their 
several  countries ;  one  in  the  gorgeous  Orient,  one 
in  the  busy  Qccident. 

Whatever  shall  be  the  future  career  of  this  elo- 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  425 

quent  person,  — whether  the  visionary  wildness  of 
his  sincere  philanthropy  shall  ever  subside  into  a 
philanthropy  of  possibilities,  or  he  shall  round  his 
career  as  it  has  opened,  —  we  think  he  will  be  re- 
membered hereafter  as  a  true  man.  He  may  be 
fierce  and  not  well  steadied  in  the  fashion  and  the 
passion  of  his  philanthropy,  but  his  philanthropy 
itself  is  genuine.  He  is  infinitely  more  worthy  of 
honor  than  many  of  the  politicians  who  have  ridden 
into  the  sunbeams  of  celebrity,  by  temporarily  be- 
striding his  hobby.  When  they  are  forgotten,  he 
will  still  live.  The  men  of  his  own  day  will  never 
laurel  him,  but  the  men  of  the  future  will  build  him 
a  monument.  Success  is  the  God  of  to-day.  Truth 
is  the  God  of  Eternity.  Not  as  a  wise  man,  but  as 
a  true  man  among  many  sham  enthusiasts,  will  he 
be  kept  in  memory  ;  one  whose  thought  possessed 
him  almost  to  madness  ;  who  for  the  faith  that  was 
in  him,  turned  coldly  from  the  splendor  of  renown  ; 
and,  almost  single-handed,  breasted  his  social  age. 
Unto  the  men  of  Faith,  whose  passionate  thought  is 
its  own  exceeding  great  reward,  whether  they  be 
wise  or  fanatical,  is  given  the  kingdom  of  Heaven 
1  ereafter,  and  the  kingdom  of  Eloquence  here. 


THE   END. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below 


NOV  282001 


OCT  0  5  2001  REC'O 


PN4091.P3. 


3  2106  00169  4758 


